An Adage for a Friend
by squarey
Summary: Ch 30 for you. This series is Bobbycentric, a continuation of sorts from The Doctor Is In. Each chapter is an adage about friendship. Complete for now.
1. Just Friends

**A/N:** _Hi, so this uses characters/ history introduced in "The Doctor Is In." This is presented from the point of view of Lucy Jones (an OC from the prior story). Each chapter in this fiction is an adage with the word friend. Thanks for reading. As always, if you would like to read more, feel free to drop a review._

_Thanks to Dick Wolf et al. for the LOCI characters. _

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_**Just Friends**_

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"So what you are saying is that you are just friends." My best friend Annie Roberts was looking at me, skeptically, over her martini. 

"I don't understand how you drink that, it tastes like turpentine." I replied, referring to her drink, trying to get her to change the topic. I was tired of the topic, having gone over it at length with my sister Laura.

"Don't change the subject." She said, smiling. "Just friends?" She asked.

"Yes, Bobby Goren and I are just friends." I replied.

"Is he a good friend?" She asked, pushing my buttons a bit more.

"I don't know, he's kind of rusty at the whole friend thing." I observed, taking a sip of my club soda.

"That's not what I meant." Annie said to me, and I knew that was not what she meant. I had intentionally dodged her play on the words _good friends_. I knew she was simply rephrasing to see if Bobby was more than a friend.

"I know that's not what you meant." I had been best friends with Annie since about kindergarten. She was so easy, our friendship felt as natural as breathing. Bobby on the other hand, didn't exactly have a lot of long standing relationships in his life. The longest standing relationship he had was perhaps with his partner Alexandra Eames. And, over the past year, he had apparently done a lot of damage in that arena. He seemed to want to mend things with Eames. I knew that the fact that he was out of sync with his partner was putting him a bit off balance.

"It doesn't taste like turpentine. It is nectar." She smiled, finishing her second martini.

"Nectar is sweet, I think." I offered.

"OK, dry nectar." She allowed. I watched the server set another martini down in front of her.

"Compliments of the gentleman over there." The server said, referring to a tall blonde guy at the bar. He looked familiar to me, as if I had seen him before, with Annie. I watched Annie smile and wave in his direction, confirming my initial feeling that she knew the guy.

"Oh hey, that's Jonah." Annie whispered to me.

"He and I, we're just friends." She gave me a wicked smile and a gigantic wink.


	2. Walks in

_**A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out**_

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I was drumming my fingers on the table, looking at my watch. Bobby was not usually late, and if he was running late, he usually would call. I had been sitting waiting for him for about 30 minutes, so I picked my cell phone out of my purse to see if he was on his way and just slightly delayed. He was coming from work, so maybe something was happening that was keeping him. I knew that if he couldn't take the call, it would simply roll into voice mail. 

I was surprised when his cell phone simply kept ringing, no answer, no voice mail. So, I hung up and tried again, thinking I had dialed the wrong number.

"Eames." At first I didn't say anything. I couldn't imagine why Bobby's partner was answering his cell phone.

"Hi, this is Lucy Jones, I was looking for Bobby." I finally found my brain and managed to sound reasonable.

"Oh, hi." Eames responded. I thought she sounded a little strange.

"Hi." I replied, not really knowing what else to say. I had already asked for Bobby, if he was sitting there he would have answered or she would have given him the phone. I waited through a few seconds of an excutiatingly awkward silence.

"Lucy, this is Alex Eames, Bobby's partner." She said into the phone, and my stomach kind of immediately flipped around inside of me. If everything was normal, she wouldn't have sounded so not-normal. I knew who she was, I knew who I was talking with, she had identified herself when she answered the phone. So, I knew something was wrong when she re-introduced herself.

"Is everything OK?" I asked, an obvious question, I thought, given the circumstances.

"Bobby's fine." She replied, though I knew that couldn't be the case. So, I waited, not knowing what to say, not wanting to accept that statement and hang up the phone.

"Maybe you could come over." She said, finally speaking her mind. I was laying cash on the table to pay for my drink, and putting on my coat as soon as she said the words.

"Is Bobby OK?" I asked, walking outside to hail a cab.

"Bobby's fine." She replied, again. But, I knew that simply wasn't true.

"Alex, is Bobby OK?" I repeated, this time calling her by her name.

"It's just, its been a long day." She allowed.

"Come over where?" I asked, realizing as I got into the cab I had no idea where I was headed. Alex gave me the address, which I gave to the cab driver.

"I'm on my way." I replied.

"Good." She said, and then she paused again, as if she wanted to say a bit more.

"You know his brother, Frank. He over dosed. The hospital contacted Bobby. Frank survived, he was admitted." Alex finally gave me something.

When I got out of the cab, Alex was standing outside.

"Bobby's inside. I can't get him to leave." She said, referring to the bar behind her.

"I took the message, the message about Frank. It came in first thing today. And, when I gave it to him, he simply stood there looking at me. No reaction." She supplied.

"I asked if he wanted to go to the hospital, I offered to go with him. He said that Frank was nothing to him." Alex continued.

"Then we kind of went about our day. After our shift, I asked if he wanted to go for a beer or something. And he said sure. So we did. And, now we're here." Alex offered.

"He's not…" She started to say something. "I can't…" She tried again.

"I'll see." I said, indicating I would go inside.

"I'm going to go." She said. I guessed Alex probably had spent the better part of her partnership dealing with Bobby's mercurial temper, and she had her own way. Thoday's way was to walk away. I knew that she didn't often do that. I appreciated she was the only one who usually stayed. But lately, she had been walking away a bit more often. Or, Bobby had been pushing so hard on her that she sometimes had no other choice but to walk away.

"Thanks." She said, with a bit of hesitancy. I nodded, and watched her walk down the block to where I could see her SUV.

During the cab ride, I had called the hospital to check on Frank's status, and in an attempt to get Frank a bed some place, I left a few messages for some rehabilitation centers where I had some pull. I knew it was not as simple with Bobby as Frank meaning nothing. If it really was that simple, Bobby would not be sitting in a bar alone. If it really was that simple, Bobby would not have such a visceral reaction to the news about Frank.

I let my eyes adjust to the dim interior of the bar. I could see him sitting on the far end, kind of leaning forward heavily on his hands.

"If you were going to change the place where we were having a drink, you should've called." I said lightly, as I moved to sit on the stool beside him. He looked at me, a bit of surprise in his expression. He was drunk, very drunk, and by Alex Eames' reaction, probably very belligerent and drunk.

I watched him toy with an empty glass in front of him.

"They don't serve tea here." After a few moments, he finally spoke to me.

"Right." I looked around the place. It was definitely not the kind of place that served tea.

"Did Eames call you?" He asked, accusation in his tone.

"No." I honestly replied. He looked at me sideways.

"I was calling you, and she finally picked up your cell." I watched him running his fingers along the edge of the empty glass.

"I want to feel nothing." He said, his breathing was heavy, and he ran his hand slowly through his hair.

"Nothing." He repeated the word, rubbing his forehead with the heel of his hand.

"Should be easy, right, to feel nothing." He asked, looking at me. I knew that it was not easy to feel nothing. And, I knew that it was not easy for a man like him to feel nothing.

The bartender placed a fresh drink in front of him. I watched him down the shot.

"Even when we were kids, I couldn't respect him. He was my older brother, I should've looked up to him, at some point, I should've admired him for something. I never admired him. My mom, you know, she thought he hung the moon. Till the day she died, Frank hung the moon." Bobby fiddled with the empty shot glass.

"We don't get to pick our family." I said, not knowing if it was necessarily the right thing to say, but it was the truth. Bobby struggled with wanting to pick his family, to pick what he felt about his family.

"And we don't get to pick how we feel about our family." I said, taking the shot glass gently from his hands, and sending it spinning in front of me on the bar. He watched the shot glass spin.

"I hate…" He said the words, and I thought a million words could come next.

"You hate that I can spin this shot glass better than you?" I said, and he tilted his head in my direction, in the way that he did when I surprised him with what I said. I knew that he expected me to want him to finish his sentence. But, he didn't need to finish his sentence. It was the kind of thing maybe better left unfinished. He was in so much pain, so much conflict inside of himself. How do you hate your brother, your mother, your father, your family, your life, without hating yourself? And, if you hate yourself, what does that leave. So, I left his sentence unfinished.

"I hate that you can spin that shot glass better than me." He said, and with amazing dexterity, for someone I thought was so clearly drunk, he reached out and caught my hand and the shot glass in his hand.

"You have my phone number right?" I said, as he held my hand and the shot glass in his.

"Next time, call me." I said, looking at him.

"Next time, call me when you are going to be late." I said, and he smiled. I knew that he understood what I meant, that I meant simply the first thing I said, that he should call me, that I would come and spin shot glasses with him anytime.

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**A/N**: If you like the premise, and have an adage with the word "friend" - feel free to let me know and I will try to use it :) 


	3. Some fun

_**It is one of the blessings of friends that you can afford to be stupid with them**_

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"_Give me the beat boys and free my soul, I wanna get lost in the rock and roll and drift away_." I was singing the song at the top of my lungs kind of jumping around dancing as I laid out dinner party supplies on the table. I was happy that the CD player was turned up so loud that I couldn't hear my terrible singing. 

I was looking forward to this evening - a dinner party with friends. Emil was running late, so I was home alone, laying out plates, and utensils, and serving pieces, and setting up a bar with glasses and liquor and mixers.

"_Day after day I'm more confused, but I look for the light through the pouring rain_…" I was lining up wine glasses, still singing, when someone touched my shoulder from behind. I jumped a bit, turning surprised to see Bobby standing behind me.

"Your front door was unlocked." He mouthed the reprimand to me. I couldn't quite hear him over the music. I took the bottle of wine he had brought as a gift and set it on the table.

"_Give_ _me the beat boys and free my soul, I wanna get lost in the rock and roll and drift away_…" I kept singing, a little less loudly, but smiling all the same. I was looking forward to having a house full of people tonight. I was happy that I had finally managed to goad Bobby into coming. It had taken more than a week to convince him. I knew he was still quite skeptical about the whole thing.

Bobby Goren wasn't exactly the dinner party type. He was not the type of man who stood around someone's living room, drinking a glass of wine, chit-chatting about the day. He was more at home in a crime scene, more accustomed to murder. Sometimes I thought he was a little too accustomed, for he seemed to treat murder as if it were simply about solving some mystery or puzzle.

I recognized that Bobby seemed to prefer to live inside his head. Unless pressed, he did not seem to interact very often with others outside of the job. I didn't necessarily think this was a fault. I enjoyed his cerebral nature, and I did not want to fundamentally change him. I respected his serious side, I appreciated his dry funny side, and I admired his intellect. But, I thought that on occasion he needed to stretch his chit-chat muscles and maybe try to lose himself a bit in the hum-drum of some mundane human interaction.

"_Beginning to think I'm wasting time, don't understand the things I do, the world outside looks so unkind, so I'm counting on you, to carry me through_…" Bobby completely surprised me by singing the next verse along with me. He was smiling, and took over setting up and organizing the bar area. I couldn't help myself, I laughed aloud, loving that he was throwing himself into my plan to have an evening of fun.

"_Give me the beat boys and free my soul, I wanna get lost in the rock and roll_…" We were singing together, loudly, me at least a bit off-key. At the end, I was laughing like a little girl, laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes.

I was surprised when the song ended to find Emil leaning against the door jamb. He hadn't been there a moment ago, so I figured he hadn't been there long.

"You two should keep your day job." Emil smiled, good naturedly and kissed me on the temple as he walked by.

"I think I might need a drink." Bobby said, after Emil had walked into the kitchen, and he poured himself a generous glass of scotch.

"I think I'm glad you're here." I said, wiping the tears of laughter from the corners of my eyes. It was fun to feel a little silly, to see that he allowed himself the luxury of feeling a little silly. I watched him down a generous swallow of his drink, and then he mock toasted me with the glass. And, I could tell, he was glad to be here too.

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**A/N**: _Thanks for reading, please feel free to review me and let me know what you think. I'm toying with where to take these..._


	4. Divides grief

_**Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief**_

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"How was your appointment this week?" Bobby asked. He was driving, I was still getting used to being chauffeured around. Because of the seizure I had, it would be a while yet before my neurologist would let me drive again. Though, it was just as well that I wasn't driving, because if I had been, I probably would have wrecked the car when Bobby asked his question. 

"I, um." I started to say, and could feel my voice break. I hadn't told him, I was going to tell him, but when it was so new, the pain still a bit raw, that I couldn't really imagine simply calling someone and saying what I had to say over the phone.

"You um what?" He said, looking at me, a puzzled expression on his face. I was searching my brain for the words. Bobby was one of the few people that knew I was pregnant. It was a little difficult to keep from him.

Last week, when I had been out with him, I had dropped my scarf on the ground. When I bent forward to pick it up, and my head went below my heart, I threw up all over the ground. When I went to stand up, I was dizzy and kind of stumbled forward. He reached out to steady me, a look of complete shock on his face.

"Sorry." I had said to him.

"What the hell was that?" Bobby had asked me, and then he had looked at me, my complexion.

"Are you pregnant." He had said it more as an accusation than a question.

"Yeah, a little bit." I had replied, with a bit of a weak smile.

"How can you be a little bit pregnant?" He picked at the details of what I had said.

So he had known I had a sonogram appointment this week. The appointment had not gone well. Funny, I should try to revise it like that, and use the phrase "not gone well." In fact, the appointment was awful. The sonogram technician could not find a heartbeat, so they called in the doctor, who could not find a heartbeat.

Emil was there with me. I had started to hyperventilate, without really realizing what I was doing. I had said stop it, so softly no one heard me. So, I repeated the words, stop it, stop it, stop it, please stop it. I squirmed on the table until they got the sonogram equipment away from me.

I remembered Emil was holding onto me, saying something to me in his deep, gentle voice. I was shaking my head no. Emil helped me get dressed, he helped me with my shoes because my hands were still shaking so hard that I could not seem to manage that on my on. When I had looked at my watch I was astounded to see that only 30 minutes had passed by. It had felt like an eternity, an eternity of watching that screen, seeing nothing.

So, Bobby was asking me about my appointment this week, and I didn't know what to say.

"I, um." I said the words again. This time Bobby pulled the car over to the curb. He knew something was wrong, otherwise I would have simply said "the appointment was fine."

"I'm not pregnant, not anymore." I said the words, because I couldn't say the words "I lost the baby", I had never really even seen the baby, the bean shape in the sack, the heartbeat. I had just simply seen the pregnancy test, and felt the hormones rushing through my body. I had simply felt the soreness in my muscles, in my chest. I had not seen a baby, so I couldn't say I lost a baby. But I felt that way.

I looked at Bobby, disbelief in his eyes, sorrow in his eyes. He wasn't like my friend Annie, who was able to look a little strong for me, and hold my hands and tell me I was healthy, and that sometimes nature knew the way of things, even though it did not make sense to us. After that initial moment of loss, Emil had tried to be strong for me, so I could feel strong. Bobby did not have that. Bobby did not have that poker face of emotion. He simply looked at me, and I felt as I had in those minutes when I realized there was no baby. I started to shake, I brought my hands up to cover the tears in my eyes. I did not want to cry, I did not want to cry here, pulled over on the side of some road, with Bobby looking at me.

Bobby surprised me by getting out of the car. I had no idea where he was going, but I thought maybe I could compose myself. Then the passenger door opened, and he was crouching there beside me. He reached in and undid my seat belt and pulled me out of the car, into his arms. At times, I simply forgot what an enormous man he was, so he kind of enveloped me in an embrace, crushing the air out of me.

"I'm so sorry." He said, his voice barely above a whisper. And that was it. This man, this friend of mine, had grabbed me out of his car, to tell me he was sorry, to share my sadness.

"Me too, I'm sorry too, I'm so sorry." I said the words, not apologizing to him for crying, but agreeing with him. Sorry, sorrow, sadness, all so close, almost the same.

He held me until I stopped crying so hard, until I stopped shaking so hard. Then he moved me out to arms length, to look at me. And, with his gloved hand he wiped the tears off my cheeks.

"I think," He said, "I think we should probably go for some ice cream." He completely took me off guard, and all of my tears turned into a watery smile. I thought about why he would say such a thing, I thought about maybe the last time in his life, when he had allowed himself to feel such sadness, maybe ice cream was the thing that made everything all right. And, I realized, that maybe he was right. That maybe ice cream did sound great.

"I think you're right. With sprinkles, you know those chocolate ones."

"They're called jimmies." Bobby said, and stood, letting me get back into the car.

"Right, they're called jimmies." I smiled, leave it to Bobby to say that the chocolate ones were called jimmies. And, there it was, he took some of my grief, and helped abate it by something as simple as ice cream with jimmies.

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**A/N**: _I wanted to flip this one around, and let Bobby be the friend. If you are liking these, I have a few more adages I can post. Thanks for reading/ reviewing._


	5. A million little things

_**Friendship isn't a big thing - it's a million little things**_

* * *

"Lucy." My sister Laura called my name to get my attention. I don't know why, but I felt like the only time she called me by my name was either when she wanted something from me or was upset with me. Irrational, I know, but knowing that something is irrational does not necessarily change how we feel. 

"Yes?" I said, my single syllable sounding incredibly defensive.

"I can't believe you, I haven't even said anything." Laura looked at me. I could see the irritation in her expression.

"I'm sorry, I've just been tired lately." I said, trying to be honest, trying to take a deep breath and not feel defensive.

"How is Emil?" Laura asked. I did not find her question to be exactly civil. I knew that she thought it was just a matter of time before Emil pushed me to the side of his life again. This time I believed she was wrong. This time I could feel in my heart that Emil was in this for the distance. He loved me. I could feel it in the way he looked at me, in his touch, in the way he kissed me. I could feel it in the way he allowed me space, yet held me close.

"He's fine." I replied in that non-reply kind of way.

"And Bobby?" Laura asked. I couldn't understand why she was jumping from one to the other. I was starting to think my initial reaction of being defensive was not so irrational. I knew she was asking because she couldn't understand how I could be involved and in love with one man but be in the middle of forming a friendship with the other. It occurred to me, that I didn't think Laura had any friends of the opposite sex.

"He's fine." I used the same reply, but with Emil I meant it, with Bobby this week I wasn't certain. Bobby's life felt like a roller coaster to me. He would catch a case; it would consume him for a time, taking him on a wild ride as he worked to solve it. Then he would close the case, and come down from the ride for a while. Then he would catch another case and jump back on the ride. Right now he was in the middle of something, so I hadn't talked to him in a few days.

"I'm glad everyone in your life is fine." Laura responded a bit sarcastically.

"So am I." I met her tone with a little sarcasm of my own. We sat in silence for a moment. I took a deep breath and tried to put the exchange aside. I had brought something for her, something I thought she should have.

"I brought this for you." I pulled a stack of index cards, rubber banded together, and handed them to my sister. I watched her take them, and look through them. They were hand written recipe cards, written by our mother. I had come across them in a box of things I had kept from my mother's house. When I came across them, I realized they represented a small memory of my mother for me, but they would mean a lot to my sister. So, I had brought them along to give to her.

"Thanks Lucy." She said, and this time her use of my name did not make me feel defensive. In fact, her voice sounded a lot like our mother's voice. I closed my eyes, and missed our mother.

**

* * *

**Later that evening, I stood outside Bobby's door juggling two bags of groceries. I had come into the building behind someone else, so he didn't know I was at his door. I was trying to knock, but couldn't quite manage the balancing act. So in the end, I softly kicked the door. It sounded a little bit like a knock, and it did the trick. I could hear him walking toward the door. 

"Lucy." He said, as he opened the door, his surprise to see me clear on his face. I liked it when he said my name. He had this pattern of speech, a certain inflection, and I could hear it in how he pronounced my name. It was distinctly him.

"I was thinking that maybe you were hungry?" I said, shifting the heavy bags in my arms.

"Yeah, actually, yeah I'm hungry." He said, taking the bags from me.

"I just, well I haven't heard from you in a few days, I know you've been busy at work. I hope it's OK for me to come by." I said. I had not been to his place very often.

"Come in." He said, turning in his entry way, gesturing for me to follow him into the kitchen. I watched him pull the groceries from the bag, bananas, apples, and some grapes. From the other bag he pulled a loaf of bread, some cheese, and some butter. Lastly, he pulled out a dozen chocolate chip cookies that I had picked up from the bakery.

"Sit, I will make grilled cheese." I said, pointing to him and to a chair in his kitchen. I washed the grapes and set them in front of him. He ate a few as he watched me search through his kitchen for a pan for the grilled cheese. I opened the fridge for something to drink, and noticed that it was practically empty except for a few beers and some milk.

"Milk or beer?" I asked him what he would like to drink.

"Beer." He said, and I handed him one. I looked at the milk; it was new so I poured myself a glass of milk. I leaned against the counter drinking it, thinking how great icy milk tasted, and how fabulous the grilled cheese smelled as it cooked slowly on the pan. I watched him drink his beer, nearly emptying the bottle in 3 swallows.

He stood to get another from the fridge, and pulled down two plates. I set the grilled cheese on the plates and cut them on the diagonal. We sat together, eating a moment in silence.

"You know, you look like crap." I said, in a friend to friend kind of way. I watched him scratch his fingers through his disheveled hair and across his unshaven face.

"How do you feel?" I asked.

"Fine." He replied, finishing his second sandwich. I narrowed my eyes at him, wondering if he really felt fine.

"I feel fine now." He said, drinking his beer, watching me for a moment. He said the words as if he had not felt fine before, but my coming by with grilled cheese had made some kind of difference. I smiled as I watched him dig into the bag of cookies.

**

* * *

**When I got home, I undressed and washed quietly. Emil was sound asleep, and I didn't want to wake him. 

"Lucy." Emil's voice was sleepy. He pulled me into his arms, my back pressed against his chest. When he said my name I felt comforted, his voice, so familiar, his tone, so soft.

"How is your friend Detective Goren?" He asked, smoothing my hair off my neck so he could pull me even closer.

"He's fine." I replied, and unlike with my sister, this time I meant it.

"I cleared my schedule tomorrow morning so I could go with you to the neurologist." Emil offered, still sounding half asleep. I hadn't asked him to do this, and I was touched that he had thought about it. A year ago, it would have never occurred to him. As I lay there falling asleep, I thought about my day. All of the little things between people, they amount to everything.

**_

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_A/N:**_ Thanks for the reviews. As always, reviews are always welcome. They motivate me to keep posting._


	6. Along for the ride

_**A good friend bails you out of jail - a best friend is sitting in jail with you saying "damn, that was fun"**_

_**

* * *

**_"Oh my god, stop the car." I exclaimed, causing Bobby some alarm. He had agreed to drive me out to my sister's house to drop off something. Not being able to drive post-seizure was starting to become tiresome. In the city, it was easy enough to get around. But to go anyplace else, I had to rely on my friends. I had convinced Bobby to drive my car, so I was riding shotgun. 

"Lucy, are you OK?" He looked at me sideways, concern on his face.

"Did I miss a turn?" He asked, still kind of looking at me.

"Just stop the car, here." I was pointing at the window, pointing out the window. He swerved sharply off the road onto the shoulder and stopped the car.

"They're perfect." I said looking at the large fat pinecones scattered under the trees on the grass. Bobby leaned over me, looking around.

"What's perfect?" He asked, not seeing what I was seeing.

"The pinecones. They're perfect, Laura would love them." I referred to my sister. I was undoing my seatbelt about to get out of the car.

"What?" Bobby was still leaning over me, looking out my window, so he was kind of slowing down my progress in terms of getting out the car.

"The pinecones." I pushed at him a bit to get off of me so I could get out and collect some of them to take with me to my sister's house.

"She makes these wreaths and decorations and stuff, with pinecones." I tried to explain. "She always needs them. And, these, these are perfect."

"What are you talking about?" Bobby looked at me, a bit blankly. I was beginning to become concerned about his mental acuity. I couldn't understand what he didn't understand.

"The pinecones." I said, slowly. "I would like to collect some of them to take with me for my sister."

"You want to get out of the car and collect pinecones?" He repeated, looking through the windshield, and then into the rearview mirror.

"Yeah." I smiled, and opened the door.

"That's someone's yard." He leaned over the now empty passenger seat looking up along the grass to the house on the hill in the distance.

"They will never see us. I will stay near the road. I am only going to collect the ones on the ground." I was digging through my trunk, emptying out two large paper shopping bags. I could see Bobby getting out of the car, coming around to stand next to me at the trunk.

"But, that's someone's yard, you know, someone's property." Bobby offered, rubbing his nose with the back of his wrist. He was looking around, to see if anyone was in sight.

"I'll be fast." I said, starting to put the best looking, fattest pinecones into the bags. I was surprised when he joined me. A lesser friend would have returned to the car, to keep look out, to bail us out in case we were busted trespassing on someone's property.

"What are we looking for?" He paused, looking at me as I quickly glanced at the pinecones before dropping them into the bag.

"I'm just making sure they aren't smushed." I offered, holding up a pristinely perfect pinecone.

"Right." He smiled, that kind of half smile he had when I knew that he found what I was doing seemed funny, but he did not want to laugh out right at me.

He grabbed a bag from me and set off some feet ahead of me to fill his bag. I watched him bend over, picking up pinecones, looking at them, setting them into his bag. I watched him throw a few smushed ones aside. I couldn't resist, when I came across one with a crushed side I threw it in his direction, hitting him softly on the back of his shoulder.

When he turned to face me, he was holding a pinecone in his hand, and he zinged it past my head.

"Nice throw Goren." I taunted him, and threw another one, hitting him in the chest.

When the police car pulled up, lights on, no sirens, we were throwing as many pinecones as we were collecting. I saw the police first, they pulled up behind Bobby. He turned when he heard the crunching of tires on the gravel shoulder, pinecone in hand.

"Sir, we're going to have to ask you to put that down." One of the uniformed local officers asked Bobby. I looked at Bobby, holding the pinecone in his hand, mouth slightly open with surprise. I giggled.

"Sir, please, put that down." The officer asked, as if Bobby were holding a hand grenade. I could see Bobby's expression turn from surprise to puzzlement as he looked between the officer and the pinecone in his hand.

"It's a pinecone." Bobby offered.

"I can see that sir, now if you would just put it down." The officer asked. I could see the second officer getting out of the driver's side of the patrol car. I watched Bobby drop the plump pinecone into the paper bag.

"I'm going to need some identification." The officer was still talking with Bobby, the second officer was standing nearby, looking at me.

"You know this is private property." The second uniform was now walking in Bobby's direction. Bobby dwarfed both of them, and I thought they looked a little intimidated, at the very least, respectful of Bobby's height and breadth.

"Yes, private property." Bobby shot me a I-told-you-so look.

"I'm going to need some identification." The uniform repeated to Bobby. I watched Bobby hold out his hands to show the officers they were empty.

"I'm reaching for my wallet." Bobby explained. I could tell that Bobby was aware that they were watching him very carefully.

"Ma'am. Did you call this in?" The second uniform said to me, revealing that they thought I was the home owner, which explained why they hadn't directly addressed me yet and asked me for identification.

"Um." I said, trying my best not to smile.

"Actually, I'm, um, with him." I said, gesturing to Bobby, who was scowling at me, but his eyes were kind of smiling.

"You're with him." The uniform said, looking at me, and then looking at Bobby. Bobby was now holding his wallet in his hands.

"Is this your vehicle?" The uniformed office gestured to my car.

"Yes, that is my vehicle." I replied.

"We're going to need some identification. License and registration." I set down my bag of pinecones, waking toward my car, as one of the officers looked at Bobby's identification.

"The home owner, she seemed pretty spooked. She said there was some homeless guy in her yard." The officer looked at Bobby. I covered my mouth with the back of my hand to keep myself from laughing. Bobby kind of did look like a homeless guy, he hadn't shaved, his hair was all over the place, his jacket was a little shabby. I guess I might have been a little put off myself had I looked out the window and seen him in my yard.

I handed the other officer my license and registration.

"I'm going to have to call this in." He said to me, taking my things from my hands.

"You're what?" Bobby said, his expression a little pained.

"Call this in." The officer said, looking at Bobby. Then it occurred to me, I wondered if Bobby had identified himself as Major Case Squad, NYPD. It had to be in his wallet, I wondered if he had handed over his badge. Then, I could see the sunlight glint off the metallic surface of his shield, and I knew they knew he was a cop.

"Call this in?" Bobby asked, I thought some finer distinction must be escaping me.

I watched the officer that had been driving get into the patrol car. I waited, leaning against my car. Bobby waited standing in the yard. I couldn't read what he was thinking, but I had a pretty good guess when he kind of pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

"We got your Captain, he backed your ID." The uniform came over to Bobby handing him back his identification.

"You should have more respect for private property." The uniform looked at Bobby, smiling. Then it occurred to me, that maybe Bobby would rather have been ticketed, or even jailed, than have these two patrol officers call his squad and let his squad know they were busting Bobby for collecting pinecones on the edge of someone's front yard. I was pretty certain that Bobby was in for a boatload of abuse when he returned to work.

"Right." Bobby said, narrowing his eyes in my direction.

"You should too ma'am." The officer returned my license and registration.

"Yes, you're absolutely right." I said, offering a shrug and a weak smile in Bobby's direction.

"We'll just, well, we'll just be on our way then." I said, picking up my shopping bag full of pinecones. I watched Bobby pick up his. For a moment, I thought the officers were going to ask us to dump them back onto the ground. But they did not ask us to do that, they watched us put them in the trunk. And, as Bobby fished the keys from his pocket, I heard one of the uniforms say quietly to the other one, laughter in his voice – _you called his Captain_. And, I knew the fun was already beginning.

"I am so sorry." I said, but I didn't sound very sincere, because there was laughter in my voice. Bobby had pulled off the shoulder and we were continuing down the road.

"You should've stayed in the car." I offered.

"No, I was right where I should've been." He said, looking at me, smiling. I thought it was the best smile I had seen on him, maybe ever.

* * *

**A/N:** _Thanks to __Aspiemom__. I read the adage she offered, and this immediately popped into my head. Reviews welcome, adages that use the word friend __are __also welcome ;)_


	7. Wait

_**Friends are those rare people who ask how you are and then wait for the answer**_

* * *

I sat at my desk in my office, my eyes closed, and I was rubbing my temples. My head was pounding; I felt a little sick to my stomach. When I wasn't expecting patients, I sometimes kept the door between my office and reception a little open. Helen, my part-time assistant/office-manager was in and out all morning, so it was kind of nice to keep the door to my office a bit open to let her know that she could come in and talk with me if she needed something. 

"Lucy." I was surprised when to hear a man's voice say my name. My head was pounding so hard, that I couldn't really hear very well, so at first I did not recognize who was talking to me. I opened my eyes and blinked a bit. The lights in my office seemed to strobe like rainbows in my peripheral vision.

"Lucy." The voice was closer now, and I shook my head slightly to focus on Bobby Goren standing near me. I hadn't been expecting him; in fact I didn't have plans to see him at all today. I immediately thought that something might be wrong.

About 30 minutes ago I had kind of felt this headache coming, so I had called Emil and he reminded me to try the medication my neurologist had prescribed. I was hoping I would feel the ameliorating affects soon.

"Lucy." Bobby said my name again, this time touching my shoulder. I thought for a moment that I might be sick, so I closed my eyes again.

"I'm fine, just give me a moment." I said, my voice barely above a whisper. I could feel him standing nearby looking at me.

"You're not fine." He said, I thought I could hear a tinge of fear in his voice.

"I'm fine." I said, placing my forehead down against the heels of my hands.

"I will be fine." I said, as if just saying the words would make me fine.

"You're not fine." He said the words again.

"I have a headache." I murmured.

"Just give me a moment." I repeated, I could feel a bit of the nausea subsiding.

"That's not a headache." His voice was full of concern. Even with my eyes closed I could see pulsing rainbow type lights.

"Could you, um, turn off the lights?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. I could hear him cross the room, turning off the lights, and then he crossed to the windows and shut the shades.

I opened my eyes, slowly.

"Is everything OK?" I asked him, circling back to my initial thought about why he was coming by my office.

"No, everything is not OK." He looked at me like I was crazy. I realized he was talking about me, he was telling me everything was not OK with me.

"I'm fine." I said, able to focus on him and sit back in my chair a bit.

"You're not fine, this is not fine." His eyes narrowed, he was getting upset with me. I realized he was waiting for a better answer than _I'm fine_.

"It's a migraine." I offered, thinking that he probably already knew that, that he could see it in my sensitivity to light, in the way I was gripping my head practically falling out of my chair.

"I have a prescription, I'm feeling better." I offered, I smoothed my hands along my skirt, and ran my hands across my hair. I could feel him watching me.

"I don't believe you." He observed.

"You don't believe that I have a migraine?" I asked, not realizing I was still whispering.

"I don't believe that you're feeling better." He offered.

"I am." I said, and he reached out and lightly held my hands on his hands, I could see my hands significantly trembling.

"I am feeling better than I did 10 minutes ago." I slowly took my hands from his, glaring at him. I could see he wasn't exactly going to take me at my word.

"Is everything OK?" I asked again, still wondering why he had come by my office.

"No, everything is not OK." He again looked at me like I was crazy.

"How often do you get these migraines?" He asked, and I realized he had turned it around again to me.

"I don't know, not too often." I said.

"But you have a prescription." He pointed out the inconsistency. If I did not get them often, then why would I have a prescription for them?

"This is maybe the third one." I offered, thinking this was the third one since I had been hospitalized for the seizure. I had been referred to a different neurologist, I didn't really have a lot of information to share with Bobby, otherwise I would share what I knew.

I took a deep breath, steadying myself. I was able to sit up in my chair and focus a bit more clearly on my surroundings.

"Is everything OK - with you?" I asked, more directly this time. I knew everything was not OK with him, or he wouldn't be coming by my office.

"I'm fine." He said, still looking at me, concern etched in his expression.

"You're fine." I smiled, slowly, looking up at him. "Like, I'm fine."

"You're not fine." He said.

"OK, I'm not fine, but I have a migraine, well, almost." I allowed, not really certain. I knew I would have to write it down for my doctor, but it had not lasted very long; it was not nearly the same as the first one.

"And _you_ are not fine." I turned it back to him. I could tell he didn't want to talk about whatever was on his mind. He probably hadn't really wanted to talk about it in the first place, and walking into my office to find me not feeling well was a perfect excuse for not coming clean about why he had come by to begin with. But I was patient, I could wait him out.

He looked at me, scratching his fingers through his hair. I knew he had come by for something.

"When Frank overdosed, did you find a place for him in a rehab center?" Bobby asked the question, his inflection off, his tone strained, he was upset with me.

I nodded, looking at him, waiting for what he would say. I had never come out and let him know that I had done this. I didn't really see that he wanted to know, or that he was ready to know.

"It's not going to work." Bobby stated flatly, looking at me. Part of me wanted to ask _and how does that make you feel_ but I stifled that and instead said what I was really thinking.

"Right, it may not work." I agreed with him. This clearly took Bobby aback a bit, and I could see him mentally shifting gears. He paced away from me, across the office.

"Did you leave instructions for the rehab center to call me if Frank made any outgoing calls?" Bobby turned, looking at me. I was nodding, affirmatively. I had to call in a major favor for that one.

"He made a call, to Donny." Bobby said. "An upstate exchange."

Bobby had come by to yell at me a bit for intruding on his life and making certain Frank went to rehab, and he had come by to say he had a lead on where Donny might be.

"Are you headed upstate?" I asked, even though I was feeling a bit more clear headed, but I was not going to risk standing quite yet. Bobby was looking at me.

"Yeah, but I should put it off." He surprised me.

"Why would you put it off? Is something going on at work?" I asked, not catching on.

"No." He replied.

"I'm fine. Well, OK, I'm not fine, but I will be fine in a few hours." I stated. He was waiting for me to stand. I knew that he realized it was odd of me to remain seated behind my desk when someone was in my office. I took a breath and stood, slowly, I could feel my legs tremble just a bit. I walked carefully to stand in front of my desk. I held my hands out; they were not shaking so much anymore.

"I will be fine." I said, looking at him.

"Dr. Jones." Helen poked her head in through the cracked door. In unison, Bobby and I looked in her direction.

"Excuse me." Helen said to Bobby.

"Dr. Skoda phoned, he will be here in a few minutes." Helen relayed the message.

"Thanks." I smiled at Helen.

"I will be fine." I repeated, his concern for me still very evident.

"You on the other hand, probably will not be fine until you chase down this lead in upstate New York." I walked across my office toward the door, compelling Bobby to automatically follow.

Bobby did not follow me to the door. Instead he was sitting on the sofa, his arms crossed across his chest.

"I'll wait, I'll wait for Skoda to arrive." Bobby said, looking at me. I turned, a little too quickly, and was not as strong as I had hoped. I sat down hard in a nearby chair.

"Alright." I gave an inch.

"And, I'll call you. I'll call you later from the road." Bobby said, laying out another condition of his leaving.

"And, if you're not fine, I'm turning around." He completed his thought. I nodded. He was adamant, he was a good friend.

* * *

**A/N**: I_ have written a few more... are you reading? _


	8. Strategy

_**The enemy of my enemy is my friend**_

_**

* * *

**_"Hey," I said as I slid onto the barstool in between Annie and Bobby. I was weird walking into the bar seeing them sitting next to each other. Well, almost next to each other. My original plans involved meeting Annie, but when Bobby had called I mentioned to him that he could join us if he liked. They had met each other a few times before. The only thing they really had in common was me. So, they were not exactly fast friends, but they were friendly. 

"Am I late?" I asked as I looked at my watch thinking I was on time. But it was clear to me they were a drink or so ahead of me.

"Nope, I was early." She said, taking a sip of her martini.

"I came straight after my shift." Bobby said, taking a sip of his beer. So, I figured he had actually arrived before Annie.

"How early?" I asked, ordering a cranberry and soda.

"About 2 martini's early." She said taking the last swallow of what I assumed to be her second, but could have been her third. I could see three shot glasses neatly in a row in front of Bobby's beer.

"Jonah is an ass." She said, motioning for the bartender to bring another. I wasn't sure that was such a great idea, but I kept my mouth closed, for now.

"Just friends Jonah?" I referred to our conversation from a bit ago, where she was also enjoying a martini, compliments of Jonah.

"Very funny." Annie replied. Annie was beautiful, and I could tell just about every guy in the bar was watching this beautiful woman getting drunk at the bar.

"Apparently he had two New Yorks." Bobby supplied, revealing that Annie had been talking with Bobby about Jonah being an ass.

"Two New Yorks?" I asked, not really following.

"You know, he divides his time between Chicago and New York." Annie ate the olive out of her fresh martini.

"And when he is in New York, he is with me." She said, like that should make perfect sense.

"But apparently there are two New Yorks." Bobby cut in, the bartender had brought him another shot, which he downed neatly. I was catching on, Jonah had two women in New York, and Annie had discovered that fact. Annie was nodding like Bobby was a genius.

"But don't worry, that over there is Richard Warren." Bobby gestured to a well-dressed dark hair man across the bar. I could see the man covertly watching Annie.

"Apparently, he and Jonah are business competitors." Bobby continued.

"Richard recently beat Jonah out for a very important client." Annie added, taking a sip of her martini.

"And?" I asked, thinking that I needed to start drinking heavily to follow the flow of the conversation of these two people who were very clearly getting drunk.

"An enemy of Jonah's is a friend of mine." Annie explained, like it was crystal clear. I watched her stand, glass in hand. She fluffed her hair a bit, and ran her finger across her lips smoothing her dark lip stick. Then she walked very sultrily across the bar toward Richard Warren.

"What?" I turned to Bobby, who was finishing his beer.

"I have this suspect." Bobby said, completely losing me, unless his suspect was Richard Warren, or maybe Jonah, but I didn't think that was the case.

"I need to search his vacation home. The house, it's in his wife's name. Well ex-wife." Bobby supplied. I watched him motion for another beer. "So, I get permission to search the house from the ex-wife." Bobby tilted his head at me, smiling a little.

"The enemy of my suspect is my friend." He turned the phrase that Annie had just used.

"Annie doesn't exactly read _The Art of War_ at bed time." I said to Bobby, knowing that Bobby had just given her some kind of strange advice.

"I don't think this guy Jonah will be too happy to hear about Annie with Richard." Bobby tried to explain.

"So, there will probably soon only be one New York." Bobby continued.

"Yes, but will that be Annie or the other woman?" I asked, thinking Bobby's strategy was a little off the mark. Annie was using Richard to bring Jonah to heel.

"Right…" Bobby's expression turned a bit puzzled, or the four shots he had just downed were clouding his thinking a little.

"I guess that might not have been the best strategy." Bobby allowed, running his fingers in a pattern through the condensation on his cold beer glass.

"You're probably a bit rusty at this whole advice thing." I smiled, reaching out with my finger tip to put some polka dots in the condensation pattern on his glass.

"Probably." He allowed, taking the glass from me to take a generous swallow of his beer.

* * *

**A/N:** _Thanks to __pfchristine__! This popped right into my head when I read the adage. Reviews on the stories are welcome :)._


	9. Rest

_**You don't leave a friend behind**_

_**

* * *

**_"Hey Lucy." Emil walked up behind me, surprising me as I sat at the bar talking with Bobby. 

"Hey." I replied to Emil, as he stood behind me and kissed my cheek.

I was keeping an eye on Annie, who was still talking with Richard Warren. She was really turning on the charm, but she had slowed down on the martinis, so I was a bit less concerned that she was going to get completely wasted.

Bobby, on the other hand, was an entirely different matter. He had not exactly been having an easy time of it lately.

Bobby had located his nephew Donny in upstate New York. But he could not convince Donny to come back home with him. Donny had split in the middle of the night, and Bobby was angry with himself for letting that happen. Bobby was also angry at his brother Frank. He felt his brother was a waste of a time, and a waste of space, and a waste of life. I recognized that it was not that simple.

I also knew that Bobby was a little frustrated with me for putting Frank into rehab and not telling him about it. Bobby had refrained from saying anything to me directly. I thought maybe it was because if I hadn't interfered, Bobby wouldn't have had the lead to upstate New York in the first place. And so, Bobby's frustrations were circling around inside him.

Bobby seemed to let his feelings circle around inside until he exploded in some unforeseen way, usually all over his partner Alex Eames. Though, I hoped that lately he was trying to do a better job relating to Eames. I had suggested to him that instead of walking away, maybe he could try to say something to her first. Even if all he said to her was that he would be back in a few minutes, or hours, or tomorrow. Just a few simple words were an improvement over him suddenly stalking off.

Emil and Bobby exchanged nods, acknowledging each other's presence in the silent guy kind of way.

"Who is Annie talking to?" Emil asked, looking across the bar.

"Richard Warren." I supplied the man's name, and Emil nodded thoughtfully. Emil recognized that if I knew the guys name, maybe the guy was not a completely random stranger.

Bobby downed another shot and took a sip of his beer. Bobby and I had been constructing an elaborate pattern out of pistachio shells on the bar in front of us. Bobby's manual dexterity was quickly waning, so I could tell Bobby was feeling no pain.

"You should probably come home, get some rest." Emil said softly into my ear, he was concerned about me. I had been up since about 6:00am and it was after midnight.

"I don't want to leave Annie. I don't know that guy, and neither does she." I replied. Emil looked over at Annie, and gave me a soft squeeze on the shoulder before he walked over in her direction.

"What'd he mean, you need rest…" Bobby asked as soon as Emil walked away. Bobby's words were kind of slurring together. I smiled a bit to myself, thinking that his drunken state might be affecting his speech and motor skills, but not his hearing.

"I was up early today, and up late last night, and its late now." I offered, putting another pistachio shell in place, lining up a few of the other ones that Bobby had disturbed with his shot glass.

"You'd tell me right?" Bobby asked, looking at me. I could tell he was having a hard time focusing on me; he was having a hard time getting his words to sound right. I was looking at the pattern of shells on the bar. I didn't answer him right away. I was thinking about what he was asking me, thinking about what I should say. I watched him abruptly scoop up all the shells into a messy pile, his frustration leaking out a bit.

"You'd tell me right?" He asked again, a bit more earnestly this time.

"Yeah, I'd tell you, I'd tell you if there was more to it than that." I said. I was being honest. I had a seizure, some migraines, no apparent cause or connection. I was seeing a few specialists, but there was nothing to say.

"I should go." Bobby said, pulling back a bit. He placed some cash on the bar, and stood. He stumbled a bit sideways, and I stood quickly and kind of steadied him.

"I'll share a cab with you." I touched his arm. "I'll ask Emil to make sure Annie gets home." I offered. Bobby looked down at me for a moment.

"Stay right here." I said, taking my hands off his sides. Emil was very amenable to my leaving; he wanted me home and asleep. He also understood my asking him to make certain Annie got home OK. He did seem a little taken aback that Bobby and I were sharing a cab, but he didn't say anything. So I smiled and kissed him, and thanked him.

"We're all set." I returned to Bobby.

The cab ride to my place was relatively fast. As soon as I sat down in that cab, I could feel exhaustion creeping up on me. My limbs were tingly with sleep. Bobby was on the curb side when the cab stopped in front of my place, so he opened the door and got out. He reached out to take my hand as I climbed out behind him. When I stood, I was standing close to him. The closeness forced me to look up to meet his gaze.

"You would tell me right?" He asked the question again, as if he hadn't heard the answer before. I considered that maybe he forgot that he had asked and I had answered. He was pretty drunk.

"Yes." I looked at him. He reached out and touched my hair. I remembered when he had done pretty much the same thing when I had picked him up at the ER that night. He held piece of my hair in his fingers, a fat molasses colored spiral, he pulled it softly, watching it spring back into place.

"Spring loaded." I smiled, changing the conversation to something lighter, referring to how my hair seemed to bounce back into place. He nodded, and moved his eyes from looking at the hair framing my face to looking into my eyes.

"Sorry about the whole nut shell thing." He said, taking me a bit off guard. I was surprised that he was apologizing for letting his frustration get the better of him. He did not have to apologize to me for that.

"That's OK, I can drive a person nuts now and again." I smiled.

"I think that's my line." He said, moving to get into the cab. I watched him close the door and lean back against the seat to close his eyes. He really was a strange mix of belligerent vulnerability.

* * *

**A/N:** _When I mentioned to my roommate from college that I was playing around with adages that use the word "friend", she reminded me of __"you don't leave a friend behind". This one is __from our misspent youth… __a__s in, you don't leave your friend in a bar with some random guy, or you don't leave a friend in a bar because you want to leave with some random guy. Funny to think about those days, but still very good advice. Thanks for reading/ reviewing. __P__lease let me know if you are still enjoying reading._


	10. Perfect

_**We come to friendship not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly**_

_**

* * *

**_"Thanks, thanks for coming out here with me and waiting for me." I was smiling up at Bobby, who was playing chauffeur yet again. Not driving was truly become tiresome. 

"My pleasure." He said, with sincerity.

"You look fine." Bobby said, startling me a bit. We were standing in a coffee shop, and I realized I was smoothing my skirt, checking my sweater, and tucking my hair behind my ears. I knew that Bobby recognized my small gestures as my way of calming myself, of centering myself and my thoughts. And, if I was right, and I recognized the woman in the coffee shop, I definitely needed to center myself.

I couldn't imagine how the world could be so small that I should run into her here. Cassandra Wayne was _Connecticut_, as in the _Connecticut_ that Emil had been involved with when he was not involved with me.

"I just, need to." He pointed in the direction of the restrooms, and I nodded, feeling him walk away.

"Lucy Jones." She spotted me, and walked over to stand in front of me with her perfect posture, her perfect hair, her perfect suit, and her perfectly pleasant tone of voice.

"Cassandra." I replied, surprising myself by actually being able to speak. In truth, I realized I felt ill.

"Imagine running into you, here." She smiled at me.

"Imagine." I said, thinking that I would rather be anyplace else but here, talking with her.

"I was just…" I said, indicating that I was just on my way out. I figured Bobby was smart enough to deduce that I was waiting for him at the car.

"No, I don't think so." She remained standing in front of me.

"You know, he doesn't belong with you." She said, a perfectly polite smile on her face so that any one looking at us might think we were engaged in a pleasant conversation. I shook my head slightly, trying to clear my thoughts.

"He's only staying with you because you are ill." Cassandra wrapped her venomous words in a pleasant tone. I felt my mouth fall open a bit; I did not know what to say. In less than a second, she had cut to the quick of my insecurities, and laid me wide open in the middle of a coffee shop.

It was clear to me she was still in contact with Emil in some way. She seemed to know that I was not feeling perfect all of the time. He had not mentioned he had any contact with her. And it didn't really matter that my brain told me that she wasn't right. I had been to two different doctors, neither of which had identified anything serious. I had migraines, which were perhaps a lingering symptom connected to the seizure, or perhaps a symptom related to stress. My heart was pounding in my chest not over her misinformation, but over the knowledge that she was still talking with Emil. Silly, probably. Emil had known her for a long time. So, it could be nothing. But still, I didn't feel good about this kind of surprise, and I definitely did not feel good about her nasty words.

"As always, nice seeing you Cassandra, but as I mentioned I was just..." I managed to echo her saccharine sweet tone, and stepped around her toward the door. I could feel her watch me leave.

I walked the short block to the car and was leaning against the front fender when Bobby walked up. I was rolling the cup of hot tea across my bare palms and up the insides of my wrists, trying to warm myself from the outside in.

"Why are you waiting out here in the cold?" Bobby asked, looking over his shoulder to the coffee shop. "Do you know that dark blonde woman?" He asked, without even really taking a breath between his first question. I guessed he had seen her watching me leave.

"The perfect one, with the perfect smile, and the perfect way of making me feel so not perfect at all." I couldn't believe I had actually said the words out loud; they just kind of spilled out of me. Bobby's eyes widened a bit in surprise.

"That perfect creation is Cassandra Wayne." I offered, thinking I should ban the word perfect for the rest of the day. Bobby nodded, recognizing the name.

"She's not that perfect." Bobby stated, as if he were simply making an observation that anyone with eyes should have noticed.

"Her bag, it was a fake." He said, and my scowl immediately turned into a wide smile. I had noticed her beautiful designer bag, and I knew that if anyone could spot a fake anything it was Bobby Goren. He had probably noticed and mentally filed away every tiny detail of all of the people in the coffee shop. And because of this eccentricity, he was able to say the perfect thing to me, and some of my imperfect insecurities were ameliorated by the thought of her fake bag.

"Don't let anyone ever tell you that you're anything less than perfect." I said to Bobby as he opened the passenger door for me.

"Same to you." He said, though his tone was not joking like mine had been. His tone was softly serious, and I took his words to heart.

* * *

**A/N:** _Happy New Year! As always, thanks for reading._


	11. Jump

_**A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down**_

_**

* * *

**_"I cannot believe that you ran into her like that." Annie's dismay was written all over her face. We were having lunch together. 

"And, I cannot believe what she said to you." Annie continued, leaning forward a bit across the small restaurant table.

"You know she is completely off base." Annie concluded.

"I guess." I said, not sounding terribly convincing.

"What do you mean you guess? Emil loves you." Annie surprised me by offering her opinion. She usually reserved judgments. Also, Annie never said anything just because it was the right thing to say. So, I believed that she was right. But I also knew that it was never as simple as loving someone. Life was so much more complex.

"How do you think Cassandra even knew that I was ill?" I asked.

"Well, you were hospitalized for that seizure. That kind of thing gets around. She didn't necessarily have to come by the information through Emil." Annie observed, and part of me knew that she might be right.

"That was pretty classic - what Bobby said." Annie smiled, and I smiled as well.

"Bobby has an uncanny knack for those things. I'm sure if Bobby noticed it, Cassandra Wayne's bag was fake." Annie smiled.

"Yeah, Bobby certainly has a knack for noticing things, for noticing people." I agreed.

"Have you said anything to Emil?" Annie asked, after a moments pause in conversation.

"No, it just happened yesterday." I offered.

"Yesterday was like 24 hours away." Annie stated the obvious.

"Why haven't you said anything?" Annie asked.

"I don't know. I was thinking about considering it a little more." I said.

"What do you mean?" Annie asked.

"Oh no, whoa. No way." Annie caught on, knowing me too well. I wasn't always the even keeled logical person I was today. I had learned those skills through a lot of hard lessons. When I was in High School and even as an undergrad, I was a bit rash, tending to follow my emotions over my brain. I had dragged Annie along on many ventures that were not always the wisest, and did not always turn out so well.

"We are not going to see Cassandra, we are not going snooping around Cassandra, we are not laying a trap of information so you can see if it gets passed on to Cassandra." Annie jumped right smack in front of me and stopped me from doing something juvenile and potentially something resulting in damage beyond repair. She was right; I should simply talk with Emil. He loved me, and I could talk with him. If something came from that conversation that I was uncomfortable with, I could address that something when it happened.

"You know, I was thinking, Bobby seems a bit happier lately." Annie observed. She again surprised me; she was uncharacteristically full of remarks about people today.

"Yeah, he does." I agreed. Bobby was still all about the job, but he was building some muscles in the friendship arena. He had always been pretty good at physically being around if you needed him, but he did not often participate in many friendly exchanges. He spent a lot of time studying people, studying their interactions, thinking about their motivations. But lately, he had been giving effort to actually participating, to interacting. He had given that advice, albeit a little odd to Annie, and he had that perfect remark for me about Cassandra's bag, even though to him he was simply stating a factual observation.

I thought about how relentless his childhood had been, how relentless his life had been, how he had pretty much been on his own his entire existence. He had Alex Eames at work, but sometimes I wondered if that was really a mutually beneficial friendship, in the best sense of the word friendship. I knew that they were excellent partners, kind of ying and yang. Their strengths and weaknesses complemented each other. Those uncommonalities may strengthen a partnership, but they sometimes were difficulties in any kind of relationship off the job.

I had never said as much to anyone, but I wondered why Alex Eames had gone along with Bobby's plan to go undercover in that prison with the goal of getting himself committed to the mental ward. I wondered why Eames hadn't played things a bit differently with Bobby. Eames knew first hand what a difficult time Bobby was having, his mother's illness, her death, his brother Frank, and I was pretty certain that Eames was aware of something between Bobby and that serial killer Brady. Everything in Bobby's life had been colliding, in not a good way.

A part of me thought that Eames had played it like a cop, like his partner. By participating, she had perhaps forwarded his plan. I by no means think that she should have left him out to dry. So, maybe she did the best she could under very difficult circumstances. She certainly was there to bail him out when things went south. But, things had gone wrong quickly, and the pieces from his bad decision were spread far and wide and would take a long time to heal. Sometimes, friends should just jump in front of you and force you to find a different way. Bobby was a hard man to jump in front of, and Eames may have tried, but I wondered if she had tried hard enough.

"Earth to Lucy." Annie waved her hand in front of my eyes. "You're not still concocting some scheme are you?" Annie eyeballed me.

"No," I said, "I was thinking about something else entirely." I replied.

"Good." Annie said, "now, we should probably order dessert." She reached for the menu to examine our options.

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**A/N**: _I have a few more adages/stories swimming around in my brain. Please let me know if I should put pen to paper and post them. Thanks!_


	12. Appearances

_**A true friend is someone who sees the pain in your eyes while everyone else believes the smile on your face**_

_**

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**_"Are you OK?" Emil asked me, sliding his arm around my bare shoulders. We were standing in some fancy restaurant at an event centered around the DA, Jack McCoy. Emil knew Jack and had consulted for the DAs office for quite some time. I had occasion to meet Jack several times across the past few years. I respected his no nonsense manner; you always knew where you stood with Jack McCoy. Though, I wondered if that would still be the case now that he had assumed a political office. 

"Maybe, a little cold." I answered Emil's question. I was wearing a strappy dark crimson dress, so dark it was almost black, and the restaurant was a little cold. Or maybe, even though I had been wearing my coat at the time, I was still cold from the short walk from the cab to the restaurant entrance.

I was somewhat surprised that Emil had placed his arm around me. He was not one for many public displays of affection, or even public displays of association. His hand felt warm on my upper arm, and I kind of yielded into his body, soaking up additional warmth, and maybe simply soaking up his affection.

A few days had passed by and I had not mentioned to Emil my run in with Cassandra Wayne. I thought about what Annie had said. Cassandra could have come by that information several different ways.

"You look lovely tonight." Emil said softly in my ear, and kissed me gently on my cheek. I could not help but smile a little. In truth, I felt lovely tonight. I had treated myself to a manicure. In my 20s it was a financial treat to have a manicure or a pedicure; nowadays it was more of a treat of allowing myself to take the time. Either way, I loved the pampered feeling of nicely manicured nails. While at the salon, my hair stylist realized I was going out tonight, and she convinced me to allow her to set my hair. So, instead of wild spirals, I had thick gentle waves. I liked the effect, the dark dress, the set waves in my hair, the dark nails, I felt very 1940s.

"Thank you." I replied to Emil. "And Jack McCoy looks very lovely tonight as well." I smiled as I noticed Jack talking with two other men across the room. Jack had never been one to be particularly concerned with his appearance. But tonight, his excellently tailored suit and fresh hair cut and shave had him looking rather handsome.

"Should I be jealous?" Emil kidded with me. Jack McCoy had a reputation for having an eye for pretty women, in fact pretty brunettes.

"Not of Jack." I said, looking up at Emil, and to my absolute shock, he kissed me very softly on the lips.

"I'm glad you came with me." Emil said, moving his arm from around me to stand next to me with his finger tips slightly touching mine. It was turning out that I was glad that I had come as well. Normally, I would not attend this type of thing with Emil. To Emil, this was kind of work related, and if it was work related, even if there was a social element, he did not always feel compelled to bring me along.

"Something from the bar?" Emil asked me. "Club soda?" He said, knowing my usual. I nodded, watching him walk across the crowded room. I did not really know many people, but my eyes caught on a particular blonde. I could not believe she was here, Cassandra Wayne. The petty part of me thought that perhaps she was here on the off chance Emil would attend. She looked to be playing the part of well-coiffed arm candy to an older VIP looking man. I could see her watching Emil walk toward the bar. If Emil knew she was here, he was not letting on.

"Lucy?" A voice brought my attention around.

"Bobby." I said, with surprise in my voice. If I was surprised to see Cassandra Wayne, I was floored to see Bobby. He was standing in his dark overcoat, his portfolio in hand. I looked past him and could see Alex Eames talking with Captain Ross. I guessed Bobby and Eames were here updating Captain Ross on something.

"Is that Elizabeth Rodgers?" I noticed the Medical Examiner standing with Captain Ross, wearing a very sexy sparkly type dress. I was just getting over the shock of Bobby appearing beside me, I couldn't even begin to process what Rodgers was doing here with Ross.

"You look nice," Bobby said to me. "Your hair looks different." He observed, kind of slowly scanning each inch of me.

"It's my best party dress." I replied.

"It's nice." Bobby had finished his study of me. "Are you OK?" He asked.

"Yes, I'm a little cold I guess." I allowed, thinking back to a few moments ago, when Emil had asked something similar.

"No, that's not what I meant, when I walked up, you looked, well, you looked not-OK." He said, and I realized that he of course saw through me.

"I was just thinking, as big as New York is, it really is rather small." I replied, looking in the direction of Cassandra. Bobby followed my gaze and nodded, knowingly.

"Official business?" I asked, looking at the portfolio he held in front of himself.

"You could say that. The Captain, he's hands on." Bobby allowed, noticing that Eames seemed to be wrapping things up.

"Captain Ross requested an update on a case?" I asked. Bobby quirked an eyebrow at me and smiled a bit. "Educated guess." I said, making a little fun of myself for stating the obvious.

"Must be all that education you have." Bobby said, teasing me a bit.

"Must be." I allowed, watching Alex Eames walk in our direction. Actually she was stalking over in our direction. I looked at Bobby, a bit more carefully than I had initially.

"Are you OK?" I asked.

"Your turn to ask the questions?" He replied, trying to deflect me.

"Difficult case." I said. "Having you been acting difficult?" My tone was light, but my question had weight.

"Perhaps." He answered me just as Eames joined us.

"Goren," Alex caught his attention, "ready?" She asked, or actually kind of stated in such a way as to say we're out of here. For such a petite person, she packed a lot of strength in her frame, in her voice.

"You remember Lucy Jones." Bobby said, a bit awkwardly. I knew Alex Eames, and Bobby knew that I knew her. I thought this was Bobby's not-so-smooth way of slowing Alex down a bit.

"Of course," Alex smiled. "Nice to see you." She stated. "Ready?" She again said to Bobby. I was thinking Alex had just received an earful about the case, and perhaps an earful about something Bobby had done or not done.

"Nice to see you." I replied to Eames.

"I'm ready." Bobby said, and gave me a nod before he turned and followed Eames out of the restaurant.

"Sorry, the bar was crowded." Emil finally found his way back to me. He handed me the club soda, I took a sip, looking around the increasingly crowded room. I no longer could see Cassandra Wayne. During my exchange with Bobby, I had lost track of Emil, and I wondered if he had seen her.

"Looking for someone?" He asked me, but it was clear to me the question was rhetorical. He had seen Cassandra, and he knew that I had as well.

"How can the city be so big, and circles of people be so small." I spoke my mind. Emil placed his arm around me, kissing me on my temple.

"We don't have to stay long." He said.

But we did; that is, we did stay a while longer. In as much as Cassandra was there, we never even came close to talking with her. Emil knew many of the people in the room, none of which seemed to have anything in common with the group of people Cassandra was with. So, in as much as we were sharing the same space, we never found ourselves in the same conversation.

The evening really was rather incredible. It was a nice intersection of people, some of which it turned out I knew, or knew me. I found myself engaged in several nice conversations. But, best of all, Emil was very loving toward me all night. He could have easily left me to fend for myself, I was quite capable of holding my own, but he didn't. And, that was nice.

We were just getting ready to go, when there was a commotion at the back of the restaurant. It caught everyone's attention in a matter of moments, and word spread quickly through the crowd, packed with DAs office personnel and NYPD senior officers, that a woman had been assaulted in the alley behind the restaurant. Then within moments, we were told, much to my horror, that it was none other than Cassandra Wayne.

"Go, go ahead." I said to Emil, his expression making it clear to me that he wanted to get a closer check on things. I couldn't really deny him that. At some point, you have to take a leap, a leap of faith and trust. I wanted to trust him with this, and I should trust him with this. He had never been dishonest with me about his relationships when we were not exclusively seeing one another.

He looked at me for a moment, then squeezed my hand quickly, and made his way through the crowd. In a few moments I could hear ambulance sirens, and then I noticed Mike Logan and his reddish haired partner talking with Captain Ross. So, I knew that Major Case Squad had responded to the assault. Even though assault is exactly a major case, the high profile nature of things pushed it into Captain Ross's purview.

I couldn't see Emil, and I hadn't seen Cassandra. So, I made my way toward the back of the restaurant. I stood on the fringe of people that knew Cassandra, and could see Emil sitting with her. She was leaning against him, crying, but I couldn't help but notice her make-up remained perfect, as did her hair. If possible, she even looked perfect even after being assaulted and while she was crying. Emil looked a little stiff sitting with her, but he did not pull away. However, I was not certain that he could pull away, Cassandra was so glued to him she probably would have fallen over.

The EMTs were examining her, some injuries on her hands, some bruises on her arms, a small laceration on her collar bone that had barely produced any blood. As I was looking on, I hadn't realized, but I had crossed my arms tightly around myself, and was rubbing my upper arms with my warm palms. I wasn't certain if I was cold, or upset, or both. I think when a woman is assaulted, that every woman in the room, on some level feels a bit vulnerable.

"Lucy." I jumped at the sound of Bobby's voice behind me, knocking backward into him. He easily caught me and steadied me on my feet.

"Goren." Captain Ross growled his name.

"I'll be right back." Bobby said quietly to me, and I watched him walk over to Captain Ross.

"What're you doing here?" Captain Ross asked, shooting daggers at Bobby. "You clocked out, has the case moved?" Ross asked, making it clear that the only business Bobby had here better be related to his case, not the assault of Cassandra Wayne.

"I'm here to take a friend home." Bobby replied, his tone neutral. Captain Ross clearly had not expected that as a reply, because he backed off a bit. "As long as you're here, did you talk with Logan?" Captain Ross asked.

"Yeah." Bobby answered, without really answering, because Captain Ross was clearly asking for Bobby's opinion.

"And?" Ross asked.

Emil motioned to me that he was going to accompany Cassandra in the ambulance and signaled that he would call me. I nodded, numbly, giving Emil the OK, and I even managed an encouraging smile. It was the thing to do, to help a person.

"And, the injuries do not seem consistent with Ms. Wayne's statement." Bobby replied. My stomach twisted. Some small dark part of me remembered what Cassandra had said to me. She had said that Emil was with me because I was ill, that he belonged with her. Well, he certainly was with her now, and I wondered, and I felt horrible for wondering, if she had somehow set this whole thing in motion. I mean, what kind of woman goes out back of a restaurant into an alley alone? I had heard that she had said she stepped outside to smoke. But even so, who in their right mind would even do that? Plus, the evening was freezing, and if she was to do that, where was her coat? Wouldn't she have at least grabbed her coat?

"Lucy, let me take you home." Bobby said, touching my arms.

"I'm OK, I can catch a cab." I replied, turning to face him.

"Let me take you home." He repeated, standing in front of me, but no longer touching me. I blinked, trying to take a deep breath, finding I couldn't. When I blinked again, I could feel tears in my eyes. I felt horrified over my terrible thoughts about Cassandra. I felt awful that such a nice evening had come to such a violent end. I told myself I wasn't going to cry, why would I cry, I was fine.

"Please." Bobby said, ducking his head down to catch my eyes, looking at me softly, imploring me. All I could do was nod, accepting his offer. He knew I wasn't fine, just one look into my eyes, and he knew I wasn't fine. He took off his large black overcoat and placed it around my shoulders. I almost fell down from the heavy weight of the wool. I realized it was his way of protecting me, sheltering me, without actually putting his arm around me. I followed him, and let Bobby take me home.

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**A/N:** _Thanks for reading, and thanks for taking the time to drop me a review. When I post what I write, I love to read the reviews - they change my thinking and as they change my mood, they often change the direction of the next chapter. So, please, drop me a review and let me know what you think._


	13. You get what you get

_**The road to a friend's house is never long**_

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The day came and went with lightning speed, and I was glad for it. Emil had spent most of the night at the hospital with Cassandra. In the end, they admitted her. Though the admission was not related to injuries, it was more related to hysteria. I think that Emil probably pulled some strings and had her admitted for sedation and observation.

Part of me was surprised that he should choose to come home to my place. He could have easily called and gone to his. In fact, his place was a bit closer to the hospital. But I admit, it was nice to have him slide into my bed next to me and pull me into his arms.

He apologized to me about having to return to the hospital the next morning. I again put on my best supportive smile, and acknowledged that it was OK that he should go and help with this. I hated myself for the tiny part of me that didn't want Emil to go to Cassandra's hospital bedside. So, I called Annie. Distraction was in order.

Annie of course took the challenge to heart, and somehow managed to pull some strings of her own and book a solid 6 hours for the both of us at her favorite day spa. She picked me up within an hour, and we were off for a day of facials, and body wraps, and massages, and hiding from life.

When she dropped me off at home, I felt limber and supple, and I smelled faintly of mint and earthy fragrances. She hugged me tightly, and told me to rise above, which of course is easy to say but difficult to do. I could see on my phone that I had 3 messages waiting for me. I was in no particular hurry to listen to various and sundry status updates on Cassandra Wayne. Between some work related stuff, and what was going on with Cassandra, Emil had said he probably wouldn't be able to come by again until tomorrow.

I walked through my home, not really turning on the lights, liking how the shadows of dusk played against the warm colors of my walls, of my furniture. I sat down on my huge sofa in my family room. I had searched far and wide for the perfect sofa. I didn't want one of those small hard sofas that forced you to sit up straight with your feet on the floor. I wanted a soft, deep sofa with a high back that invited you to curl up and watch TV or read a book or listen to music, or whatever.

I grabbed the TV remote control and flipped to my favorite old movie channel. I smiled to myself as I recognized _Witness for the Prosecution_. I was just about to lean back and grab my favorite afghan when I heard someone at my door.

I padded through my foyer and looked to see who was responsible for the loud uneven knocking. I was surprised to find Bobby Goren leaning in my door jamb. I threw the locks and opened the door. He practically fell into my foyer. Immediately I could tell he was drunk.

"Bobby." I said, surprise in my voice, over both his appearance at my door, and his obvious drunkenness.

"I wasn't sure you were home." He said, catching his balance by leaning against a wall.

"I was about to watch _Witness for the Prosecution_." I answered. "You can come in if you like." I continued, as if I couldn't see that he was obviously stumbling around my foyer.

"Are you alone?" He asked, looking around my dark rooms.

"Yeah." I replied, turning to walk back toward the family room. He followed me, barely. I sat down on my sofa, and he sat down hard beside me, his long legs unevenly splayed, he leaned back against the cushions.

"I'd offer you something to drink, but I think you have that taken care of." I said with a smile, realizing I couldn't let it slide any longer.

"What?" He said, too drunk probably to follow my remark. It was early in the evening, and I couldn't think when he would have had to start drinking to get this drunk this early.

"Nothing." I replied, curling my legs up underneath me. The TV volume was low, and I realized I could hear Bobby's somewhat labored drunk breathing more so than the movie. "Long day?" Curiosity got the better of my desire to watch _Witness for the Prosecution_. He looked at me, fumbling a bit to move his shoes off his feet. He scratched his fingers through his hair.

"Do you smell mint?" He asked, kind of leaning in to sniff me. "Is it you, you're all minty." His voice was laced with a little accusation. I was surprised he could smell anything, all I could smell was scotch, on him.

"I went to a spa with Annie today." I allowed. "And you, long day?" I repeated the question.

"Frank's birthday." He answered me. He leaned back, resting his head, closing his eyes. He breathed in a heavy sigh. "I wonder if he even knows it." Bobby slurred the words together. I knew what Bobby meant, Frank's various addictions kind of interfered with him tracking any kind of calendar.

"Maybe this year he does." I replied, thinking that Frank was just recently out of a rehab facility.

"I remember when he was 10, my mom, she brought home this store bought yellow cake, the kind with the white icing." Bobby's kept his eyes closed as he spoke, and he ran his hand across his face making him even more difficult to understand. "Frank wanted chocolate." Bobby continued, again another heavy sigh. "So mom, you know, got up from the table and without even cutting a single slice, threw the cake in the trash can, and she went to bed." Bobby sighed again. "I guess you get what you get and you don't get upset," he concluded.

I looked at him for a long moment, thinking about the last thing he said. I wondered how often he listened to those words from his mom. He said them in such a sing-song way that I knew he resented them. I didn't know what to say; maybe there was nothing to say. I moved a little, so that I was kind of leaning against him as he lay sprawled in the middle of the sofa with his arms spread open along the back. As soon as he felt me against him, he tightened his arm around me. His breathing was a bit more even, his eyes still closed.

"Did they just slather mint all over you?" He asked, wrinkling his nose a bit. I smiled. Bobby really could be peculiar at times.

"Yes, they slathered mint all over me." I answered. "Did you just pour a bottle of scotch over yourself?" I tried to point out that he didn't exactly smell great.

"Nope, just straight into me." He kind of pulled me closer, tighter against him. I could feel him falling asleep. I laid my head on his chest to watch the movie. My soul hurt for him, hurt for his loneliness, hurt for his anger at his family that he couldn't seem to reconcile, and I thought about that saying, about a road to a friend's house. I was glad that Bobby found his way, I just wished he hadn't found a bar along the way.

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**A/N:** _I hope you are still enjoying reading. If you have read my stuff before, you know that to me that Chapter 13 seems like such a hurdle to get past. Anyway, drop me a review, push me into the next chapter._


	14. Old and new

_**Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other's gold.**_

_

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_

The movie was over and the credits were rolling. Bobby was still passed out cold. I was just about to stand and stretch when I heard a knock at the door. For someone who was not expecting anyone, a lot of people seemed to just be stopping by.

I stood up from the couch, Bobby stirred slightly, and ended up lying flat out on his back. I threw the afghan that I had over my lap over top of him and headed for the front door. I was extremely surprised to see Alex Eames standing on the other side.

"Detective Eames." I said, not quite knowing why I reverted to her title.

"Alex, please call me Alex." She stood on outside my door looking at me.

"Alex. Please, come in." I stepped aside, and she stepped inside.

"I'm sorry to stop by unannounced." Alex turned to face me, watching me close the door and lock it. "I was, that is…" She paused as if she was trying to find the right words. "I was looking for Bobby." She finally said.

"You came to the right place." I gestured toward the family room, and she followed me. She stood in the entryway to the room looking at Bobby passed out cold on the couch. I watched her nod, slightly, as she stood there. She watched him for a moment, watching his chest rise and fall.

"Were you supposed to meet him?" I asked, wondering why she would show up on my doorstep.

"Not exactly." She continued to watch him. I got the sense she was trying to decide to what extent she wanted to share her thoughts with me.

"Can I offer you something?" I asked, hoping she would stay for a bit. "Some coffee?" I gestured toward the kitchen.

"Sure." Alex said, following me down the short hallway. I pulled down a French press and coffee. I set a kettle of water on to boil, and retrieved two cups.

"I was going to have tea, which do you prefer?" I asked.

"Coffee, if it's not too much trouble." Alex replied as she sat down at the kitchen table.

"No trouble." I replied. She watched me in silence as the water quickly came to a boil and I set up the coffee to steep in the press and the tea in my mug. After the right amount of time, I pressed the coffee and poured it into her mug, and then I sat down at the table with her.

"How long has he been here?" Alex asked, referring to Bobby.

"An hour, maybe two." I said, pouring a generous amount of sugar into my strong tea. She nodded, taking her coffee black.

"This is good." She said, holding the mug in her hands, smelling the brew.

"Thanks." I accepted her compliment. It felt a little odd, sitting at my table, two relative strangers, not doing much of a job at making small talk.

"Today, today is his brother's birthday." Alex said, looking down at her coffee. "Frank, his brother." She added, a little awkwardly, as if to draw out what she was saying without saying anything more. I nodded, indicating I was aware. "I thought it would be a hard day, a long day." Alex allowed, taking another sip of the coffee before setting the mug down.

"I think it was." I agreed with Alex, "a hard day."

"He's passed out right?" Alex asked, meaning she recognized that she knew that he was not simply asleep on my sofa.

"Pretty much." I replied.

"I wanted to check in, let in him know I was thinking about this day." Alex traced her finger along the edge of the mug. "He didn't pick up, at home or on his cell. So, I went by his place, and then I went by the bar near his place." She looked at me, and then looked around my kitchen, seemingly taking in some of the personal details of my space. "The bartender, Cal, he knows Bobby, he kind of knows me. So he let me know he overheard Bobby leaving a message for you, asking your voice mail where you were, saying he was going to come by and check on you." Alex looked at me.

"Check on me?" I asked, remembering last night.

"I guess last night, there was some action at that thing for the DA." Alex supplied.

"Yes, you could say that." I did not know how much Alex knew about the connection between myself and Cassandra Wayne.

"Anyway, I'm sure every woman in the place felt a little vulnerable that someone should be assaulted so nearby, in the alley behind the restaurant." Alex said, echoing pretty much my exact thought from last night. I found myself liking her, respecting her direct nature.

"Cassandra Wayne, she and Emil had a thing." I said. "So last night, was hard, in different ways." I offered, revealing something personal about myself. Alex nodded.

"Cal, The bartender, he mentioned Bobby was pretty drunk when he left the message for you, and even more so by the time Cal cut him off." Alex had almost finished her coffee, and I hadn't really even touched my tea. "So, I came here."

"I was away most of the day, with my friend Annie. I think I was only home a few minutes before Bobby was at my door. And, he was only here a few minutes before he passed out on my sofa. I watched the rest of a movie, and then you were at my door." I filled out the timeline.

"His life," Alex said, and then kind of switched what she was saying. "Family things, that most families would celebrate, usually bring him a little to the edge," She said. I nodded, watching Alex watch me, thinking there was something more on her mind. "He seems to be putting some things together, some things in place. A little of his focus is back." Alex continued, she looked at me pointedly as if she were crediting my presence in his life in terms of contributing to his ability to put some peace in place.

'He's a good man." I smiled, tinkering with my tea. "He's lucky to have you in his life." I said, thinking that she had spent her day off tracking him across the city. I wondered if she would have done as much a few months ago, that she was doing it now was a good sign that things between them were maybe getting better.

"I should go." She stood, her coffee now finished. I stood as well, and followed her down the hall. Bobby had rolled over onto his side on the sofa, the afghan now tangled in his legs.

"Are you going to be OK with him, OK with him here?" She asked.

"Yeah, I think so." I answered.

"Call me, call me if you need me." She handed me a card with her cell phone number. I nodded, thinking she kind of meant it both ways - that I should call her if I needed her, or call her if I thought that he did.

"I will." I unlocked the door for her and opened it.

"Anytime." She looked at me.

"Anytime." I said, and smiled, watching her go down the walk and get into her SUV before closing the door and locking it behind me. She hadn't asked me to, but when Bobby was conscious and lucid, I would work it into the conversation that Alex had thought to check in on him, kind of like he had thought to check in on me.

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**A/N:**_ Thanks Janxangel! As soon as I read your adage, this next chapter popped into my brain. I've been wanting to work Alex into a conversation with Lucy, your adage was the perfect inspiration. As always reviews welcome and appreciated (and needed to keep my brain moving)._


	15. My sister, my friend

_**My sister, my friend**_

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"I can't believe you let Emil spend the night with Cassandra Wayne." I was having lunch with my sister, Laura, and I had filled her in on my last couple of days, or I should say, I filled her in on what was happening with Emil. I had left the Bobby stuff out.

"I should go." I replied, not meaning to sound abrupt, but I was on the verge of running late for an appointment with my neurologist.

"I know, I know." Laura smiled, and stood. I had paid the check so we were all set. My brain was still kind of stuck on Laura's take away of the whole thing. I bristled over what she had said on a lot of levels. First, I don't really _let_ anyone do anything. I am not a parent, people have free will, and they do not need my permission to do things. Second, Emil did not spend the night with Cassandra in the spend the night kind of way that most people think about. The first night he was at the hospital, and came to my house afterward. The second night he was helping her brother get her settled and feel safe at her place. In neither case did he spend the night in the major spend the night kind of way.

Laura hugged and kissed me on the cheek. This was her way of telling me that she loved me and she just wanted the best for me. She really was, at times, our mother. I smiled in return, and kissed her in return. I did not want to debate the finer points of her statement with her. I knew that would be futile. She felt as she felt, and I was going to keep my feelings to myself.

"I'll call you, tomorrow?" I asked. She nodded. In as much as we did not always have a similar perspective on things, we had a sister thing going for us, in which we bickered on occasion but we always seemed to find the time to talk with each other several times across the week and see each other all the time.

"Yes, yes tomorrow." Laura let me go, looking at me. "I worry about you." She said, and I knew that she did. Of course, I thought she worried about the wrong things at times.

"I'll call you tomorrow." I said softly, and hurried out of the restaurant with her. She caught a cab, she was going in the opposite direction. She had mentioned she was stopping by to see her husband Bruce before she headed home. I watched her get in and wave, and then I caught a cab.

I gave the driver the address, and leaned back against the seat, still pondering what Laura had said. Even though her observation felt a bit off base, she did remind me that Emil had made a conscious choice to spend two nights with Cassandra. I knew that sex had not passed between them, but there was definitely something else still there. And, maybe, that something else mattered just as much. It had turned out that the three messages on my phone were not from Emil. He had not checked in with me, he had not called multiple times trying to catch me. He had called once to let me know that Cassandra had been discharged and he would see me the next day. The other two messages were from a somewhat drunk Bobby, and then a very drunk Bobby, trying to catch me, trying to check on me, telling me he was coming over.

My life felt strange to me, slowly shifting underneath me. I knew that Emil loved me. I knew that he meant what he said when he said he only wanted to see me. But I was coming to realize that maybe I didn't fully know how that would play out. Things were not that different between us. We had not talked about doing anything differently in terms of our relationship. I didn't exactly expect Emil to get down on one knee and propose, I didn't even really think that he would immediately suggest moving in together, but I was looking for small things. Emil still had never left a single stitch of clothing or a belonging at my house. When he stayed the night, the only thing he left behind was the scent of his cologne on my sheets. Don't get me wrong, I loved the scent of him, but you might think, after years of being together, he might leave something behind.

I made the decision, right there in the cab ride to the neurologist to get my head examined, to end things with Emil. He had mentioned to me that there was an opportunity for him in California, some consulting work with the LAPD, there was 6 months of funding in place and if the program went well, a possibility of an extension. Emil had mentioned it to me in passing, that the opportunity was there, that it was interesting work, and that he was a good fit. But, in the next sentence he mentioned that his home was in New York. I knew what he meant by that next sentence was that I was in New York. And, part of me knew that he had been fishing for me to say it was a good idea to go, that I would be fine, that we would be fine. He had mentioned it in passing, and I had simply let it pass without comment. I wondered if I pulled myself out of the picture, if he would take it. Cassandra was worming her way back in, which brought me back to part of my realization about Emil. He was a smart man, perhaps one of the smartest people I knew. The fact that he could not see past Cassandra's manipulations, or he chose not to see past them, puzzled me, troubled me.

I closed my eyes sitting there in the cab; I could feel the heat of tears pressing against them. Why was love so damn hard? All my life, loving someone had been hard. Maybe it was because time after time I kept giving my heart to the wrong person. I thought about what I would say to Emil, _I love you madly, but I don't want to see you anymore and I think you would be great for that thing in LA_. Maybe I would leave off the first part; I knew that he knew that part. I felt quite certain he would see it in my eyes when I said the other two things.

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**A/N:** _I love that song "Stay" by Sugarland. If you have the time, give it a listen - it kind of intersects with this chapter. Thanks for getting me by the infamous Chapter 13. What do you think? Maybe we need some new plot instead of the same old song..._


	16. Small worlds

_**The friend who holds your hand and says the wrong thing is made of dearer stuff than the one who stays away**_

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**_"I cannot believe that you said that Emil." Annie was saying to me. I had talked with Emil last night, and when I called Annie this morning, she insisted we meet for drinks. Well, Annie was having drinks, I was having a drink, and that was a cranberry and soda. 

"Neither can I." I honestly admitted. Almost 24 hours later, I still felt a bit shocky, and I was starting to second guess my decision.

"I think things were different, a little bit different anyway." Annie finished her second drink, so she was talking pretty freely. "He cleared his schedule to go with you to the doctor, he invited you to that work thing, which you said was great until the whole Cassandra drama, which I guess might cancel out the fact that it was great, or maybe just highlight the fact that it was great and ended awfully." Annie offered.

I looked at Annie, my heart tightening in my chest. She was saying all of the wrong things, but Annie never did say something to simply say the right thing. She either did not say anything at all, or she spoke her mind.

I started to think about what she was saying. She was kind of right. Some things had been a little different. I thought about when I was in the hospital, I thought about the day of the sonogram, I thought about a lot of things. I tried to add them up in my mind. I thought back to last night. I met Emil for drinks. I hadn't waited long before I said that I didn't think it was working. He had simply looked at me, and I couldn't tell what he was thinking, he had run his hand across his forehead like he was in a bit of pain, but he hadn't said anything.

My stomach had hurt so badly that I hadn't touched the glass of wine in front of me, but he ordered a few more drinks, which he downed in fairly rapid succession. So, I could tell he was upset, but he was uncharacteristically quiet. I had asked him where he saw us in a year, in two, in more. He couldn't answer me. I hadn't even planned to ask that question, but it had just kind of fallen out of me. I realized in the moment I was asking it, that was what I was waiting for; I was waiting for some kind of view of my life with him beyond the immediate, beyond a few months. I didn't have it, and Emil couldn't provide it.

In the end, I left him sitting at the bar. I felt like I was either going to cry, or get sick, or both. I had said what was on my mind, and he hadn't changed my mind. So, for some strange reason I found myself apologizing, I didn't want to hurt, I didn't want to hurt him. Then I stood, and left. I stood, and left him.

"Ma'am, a drink from the gentleman at the bar." The server's voice brought me back to the present as he placed a Mojito on the table. Annie automatically turned to scan the bar.

"For the dark haired lady." The server nudged the drink in my direction. I scanned the bar, and noticed none other than Jack McCoy looking in my direction.

"Do you know someone at the bar?" Annie was smiling at me.

"Yes, Jack McCoy, the DA." I replied, taking a sip of the minty concoction. As I did, I couldn't help but think about Bobby the other night, asking me if I was slathered in mint. The Mojito was definitely a drink slathered in mint.

"I'll be right back." I said to Annie, lifting the drink to take it with me. She gave me a wink and watched me walk over to the bar.

"Mr. District Attorney." I smiled, "thank you for the drink."

"Oh come now Lucy, its Jack." He took a sip of his drink and set his glass down on the bar. I was surprised he felt he knew me so well as to send me a drink.

"Jack, thank you for the drink." I replied.

"I kept thinking to come over and talk with you and Emil the other night. I could never seem to break away. And, then the night ended rather suddenly." He said. His statement revealed that he felt he knew me because he knew Emil.

"Will Emil be joining you?" Jack asked, looking at me.

"No." I replied, looking at Jack a moment longer, thinking there was no way that he could know what had happened between Emil and I the prior night. So, Jack thought that Emil and I were together, and I wasn't going to be the one to tell him otherwise.

"Well then perhaps you can join me for a moment. I think your friend can take care of herself." Jack gestured toward Annie. I followed his gaze and noticed that a man was standing near the table talking with Annie.

"Yes, yes she can." I slid up onto the seat beside Jack.

"So, how do you like the office?" I asked, knowing that must be the same question that everyone was probably asking him. But, with a man like Jack, depending on his mood, I felt fairly certain that everyone was getting a slightly different answer. It was nice to sit and listen to him, to listen to his perspective on various and sundry things happening in the city.

"I'm not certain you have met Mike Cutter." Jack introduced me to the EADA, essentially Jack's replacement. "Lucy Jones."

"Nice to meet you." I stood, vacating my seat so that Mike Cutter could join Jack.

"Nice to meet you." Cutter responded politely, but his tone was all business. It was clear to me that this was not a social meeting, that Cutter was joining Jack for a drink to discuss something work related.

"Thank you." I said to Jack, thanking him for the drink. I took my glass and headed back toward Annie. I was surprised to see Bobby sitting with Detective Mike Logan, but no Annie. I scanned the bar and found her sitting a few tables away with the man that had come over to introduce himself when I had gone to thank Jack McCoy for the drink.

"Bobby." I set the Mojito down on the table. "Detective Logan." I said.

"Mike." Logan replied, taking a sip of his beer, looking across the bar at the hostess near the front door.

"Is that our illustrious District Attorney that was buying you drinks?" Bobby asked, finishing his scotch. Before I could reply, he asked, "Is that mint?" And, I laughed. Again, I could not help but think of what he had said to me the other night.

"Yes, yes it is mint, slathered all over the glass." I sat down at the table. Bobby smiled, looking a little puzzled as if my remark was familiar but he couldn't quite place it. No wonder, he was practically passed out at the time he had said it. Mike looked between the two of us, realizing it was an inside thing.

"I won't even ask." Mike said. "I think Melissa is about due for her break." He commented, referring to the hostess. I watched him stand up and straighten his tie, his shirt. Melissa was a rather shapely blonde, with a nice smile.

"And I thought you had somehow tracked me down." I ran my finger along the edge of my glass. "And, here you are, Mike Logan's wingman." I smiled, but it didn't quite reach my eyes. Talking with Jack McCoy had been an excellent distraction, but sitting here with Bobby, reality was settling in on my heart again.

"Small world." Bobby said, a bit sarcastically, referring to the coincidence of his being roped in by Mike to come out for a drink so Mike could hit on the hostess. The server came by to freshen the drinks at the table. Bobby had asked for the scotch neat, and a separate glass of ice. After taking a sip, I watched Bobby place an ice cube or two into his glass.

"May I?" I asked about the remaining ice. He nodded, and I added ice to my drink, and took a sip. It really was heavenly tasting, so heavenly in fact, I knew I shouldn't drink it because I would order another. And, I knew I shouldn't be drinking tonight, I would just end up even more sad than I already was.

"How did District Attorney McCoy manage suck the smile right out of your eyes?" Bobby asked, and I almost choked on my drink. Leave it to Bobby to cut right to the chase, and like Annie, say exactly the wrong thing. I realized that Bobby didn't even know that he was saying the wrong thing.

I didn't reply. I didn't feel like talking about it again today, here. I would talk with Bobby, but I needed to muster some strength in my emotional reserves. I managed to talk with Annie mostly without tears in my eyes; I would manage to do the same with Bobby.

"What are we drinking to?" Annie returned to the table when she noticed me sitting with Bobby. She sat down next to me, putting her arm around me.

"To small worlds." I said, bringing the conversation back around to Bobby's initial remark. Tonight, I was glad that the world was small.

"To small worlds." Bobby said, toasting me, downing his two fingers of scotch in one swallow.

"To small worlds." Annie kissed me on my cheek.

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**A/N:** _Jack won't reoccur __very often__, he's just been on my mind because of the premiere this week :) __I've got another chapter bouncing around in my brain…__ thanks for all the input, your reviews keep my brain busy._


	17. A transitive relation

A/N:_ This jumps off from the same night as the prior chapter. _

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_**A friend of yours is a friend of mine**__**

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**_At 4:00am I found myself in my kitchen making scrambled eggs for Mike Logan. Bobby was passed out cold on my couch, like some giant drunk homing pigeon that was programmed for my family room. With all of the flirting Mike had been doing with the hostess Melissa, he ended up as the sober driver. He was nice enough to take Annie to her building, and then drive me home. 

When we got to my place, I realized that sleep wasn't exactly going to come easy to me. My brain was still buzzing, so I invited both Mike and Bobby inside. Bobby of course was not long for standing, or even sitting upright, so he was on the family room sofa within minutes. Mike on the other hand was as wide awake as me, so I offered to make us some breakfast.

"Sure, why not." Mike had said, and he was now happily sitting at my kitchen table reading today's, well yesterday's, newspaper. I placed a large mug of coffee and some cream and sugar in front of him, and moved to grab the whisk to make scrambled eggs.

"Quite a little dust up at McCoy's thing the other night." Mike said. I could hear him folding the paper to put it aside, and I could hear a spoon clinking against his coffee mug.

"I guess so." I replied, wondering how much context he knew in terms of that dust up the other night. For example, I wonder if he knew of the connection between me, Emil, and Cassandra Wayne.

"Turned out to be nothing." Mike continued. My back was to him, I was still whisking the eggs, and heating the pan. "That lady, Cassandra Wayne, completely over reacted. She stepped outside to grab a smike, one of the kitchen guys tried to bum a cigarette, and she flipped out. She kind of jumped backward and smacked her head, fell down. And when the guy reached out to help her stand, she kind of struggled, resulting in some of the small bruises on her wrists and arms. I think she scratched herself somehow to get that cut on her chest."

I had just about beat an atmosphere worth of air into the eggs listening to Mike and wondering if Emil knew the details of all of this. I turned and dumped the eggs with a flourish into the hot pan, causing a bit of steam to rise. I was kicking myself for letting my brain wander off to thinking about Emil, to thinking about Cassandra. I pushed the bread down into the toaster, and turned to place some butter on the table.

"So, how do you know McCoy?" Mike asked, and I stood, somewhat surprised by his question. I had expected him to ask how I knew Cassandra. But, it was clear to me that he had no clue that I even knew Cassandra Wayne, and that the reason he had shared the details of Cassandra's alleged attack was more to do with the fact that we apparently had Jack McCoy in common.

"When you have any kind of relationship with the DAs office, it is kind of hard not to know Jack McCoy." I replied, turning to switch the heat off the eggs and finish scrambling them while the pan remained hot.

"He's kind of an ass." Mike observed, and I laughed as I turned with the hot pan of eggs. I realized I had forgotten plates, so I set the pan back on the stove for a moment and placed two plates on the table.

"I think he knows that about himself." I replied, referring to the fact that I was fairly certain that Jack McCoy knew he could be an ass and really didn't care.

"You'd think if someone knew they were an ass, they would do something to change that fact." Mike said, watching me pile fluffy, hot scrambled eggs onto our plates. I turned and grabbed the toast from the toaster and placed that on our plates as well.

"Change is not always that easy. And sometimes the person that needs to do the changing doesn't always feel the need to change." I grabbed myself a large glass of milk and sat down at the table. We ate in a comfortable silence for a few minutes.

"This is good, really good." Mike said with gusto.

"Thank you." I replied, thinking that Mike Logan would probably be a fun guy to feed a meal. He was a big guy, probably had a good appetite, and you could see the appreciation for what he was eating all over his face. "How long have you been with Major Case?" I asked.

"Coupla years, coupla partners." Mike responded. I wondered if that was some kind of standard line with him. "Not like Eames and Goren. I think they've been partners pretty much as long as they've both been in Major Case." Mike continued. "And, Goren, he's not exactly an easy guy to work with. "

I stood to get Mike some more coffee, listening to him talk as I crossed the kitchen. My brain was starting to slow down, and it was easy to sit and listen. And, I didn't really know what to add to the conversation, so I kind of let Mike prattle on.

"Goren's great at what he does, and Eames she kind of keeps him together. You should see them in interview. They've been working together so long, it's almost effortless they way they play off each other, they way the play a suspect, or a witness, or whatever." Mike stirred some sugar into his coffee. "All these new partners, I never know whose who when I'm in interview. I'm kind of used to be the hot head. When I'm working with Falacci, she's got that locked up; whereas Wheeler on the other hand is all by the book and all, so I can push things around a bit more."

I had my elbow on the table, leaning my chin on my hand. I was thinking about what Mike had said about Bobby and Alex not really needing to explicitly say much to each other on the job. They kind of knew where the other one stood, and that's what made it work. I thought Alex's head must have been spinning this past year. Bobby did not even know where Bobby stood, let alone Alex being able to tell where Bobby stood. Again, I thought the past year must have been exceedingly difficult on their partnership. I thought about how Alex had hunted Bobby down all the way to my house to check in on him the other day. Whatever water rushed under the bridge this past year was beginning to slow a bit.

"I should go." Mike stood. I stood as well, leaving the dishes on the table. I followed him out of the kitchen. "You OK with him here, or should I drag him home?" Mike asked about Bobby.

"It's OK. He'll find his way home in the morning." I smiled. "Thanks for coming in and having breakfast with me." I said, and I could see the surprise register in Mike's eyes.

"I think I'm supposed to say that to you." He smiled.

"I guess." I allowed. "I have had a helluva a few days." I said. "So, it was nice to eat, to sit, to not think so much." I smiled.

"Yeah, I've had days like that." Mike said, and he paused as if to say something else, but he didn't. He threw the locks and let himself out.

"Drive safely." I said, almost automatically.

"I'm a cop remember." He said, over his shoulder.

"Cops don't drive safely?" I asked.

"Not this one." He replied. I could hear the laughter in his voice.

I locked the door behind Mike and went into the family room and threw an afghan over Bobby, and stood watching him sleep. I wondered if Bobby appreciated that he had a friend in Mike Logan. Everything Mike had said, he had said with respect, even the part about Bobby being difficult to work with.

I returned to the kitchen to place the dishes in the sink. I thought about washing them, and decided against it. It was just after 5:00am and my mind was fuzzy with the need for sleep. I stood there thinking about what I had said to Mike about change – _sometimes the person that needs to do the changing doesn't always feel the need to change_. I thought about myself, I thought about Emil, and I stood in my kitchen, and leaned against my countertop and started to cry.

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**A/N:** _Sometimes I simply have Mike Logan on the brain..._ _Thanks for the reviews! Keep them coming and I will keep on writing :)_


	18. Coincidence

_**Nothing happens by chance, my friend. No such thing as luck. A meaning **____**behind every little **__**thing,**__** and such a meaning behind this. Part for you, **____**part for me, may not see it all real clear right now, but we will, before **____**long**_**_

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_ **

"How come you never asked me why I used the name William Brady?" Bobby asked me. "Eames, she never asked me either, she won't, you know, ask me. She should've asked me, she knows part of it, but she doesn't know all of it," Bobby continued. I watched him drink deeply straight from the bottle of scotch. I was nervous, watching him drink so heavily. I had come by to talk with him. I hadn't seen him since that night I had fixed Mike Logan scrambled eggs in my kitchen. He had left that morning while I was still asleep. I hadn't talked with him yet, about ending things with Emil. I looked at him, not knowing what to say. What I had come to say seemed so trivial at the moment, so I didn't say anything. 

"No such thing as coincidences." He said, he rubbed his hand across his forehead, through his hair. "Brady… what do you think of that last name?" He fumbled with the bottle, nearly empty. "Do you know any Bradys?" He looked at me, "Do you?" He asked the question a little louder this time.

I was shaking, not really knowing where this was going. I knew about his working the Mark Ford Brady case just as his mother was dying, I knew that his mother was supposed to be a woman in one of the photographs. I knew the timing, the timing of his mother's illness with the timing of the photograph.

"Bobby." I sat down across from him. He was sitting at his kitchen table. Irrationally, I thought he looked too big for the chair, for the table. He was leaning heavily forward on his hands.

"How rude of me." He said, "I should offer you a drink, a glass." He moved to stand, and almost fell over. I stood immediately as well. He over compensated losing his balance, and stumbled backward, catching himself against his kitchen counter.

"I don't want a drink." I said, standing in front of him, my hands kind of outstretched as if to catch him if he fell forward.

"Of course you don't. You don't drink, you must leave that to me." He said, smiling, but there was nothing smiling in his eyes.

"Bobby." I said his name again, unsure of what I was about to say, so I paused, and mustered the voice to simply say the words, "I know a Mark Ford Brady." I said, and kind of held my breath, not knowing what he would do.

"Of course you do." He continued to lean back against the counter, looking down at me. "But you should say you knew him, past tense, he's dead you know." Bobby said. "But you probably didn't _know_ him, as in know him. You knew _of_ him." Bobby played with the semantics of what I had said.

"I knew him. I know him." Bobby thumped his fist against his chest. "My mom, you know, she knew him." Bobby breathed in, raggedly. "She knew him." He said the words again. "She knew him before I was born." Bobby kept talking, and I stood very still. "She would spend time with him; she spent time with him before I was born." Bobby closed his eyes and shook his head. "When she died, she told me she didn't know, Brady or Goren, she didn't know." I watched him slide down toward the floor, as if his legs had simply given way. His back was pressed against the cabinet, he held his head in his hands. "Goren or Brady." He switched the order.

For a moment I simply stood, processing what he was saying. When my brain put together that he was using the last name because he thought that maybe it really was his last name, I fell to my knees on the floor and wrapped my arms as far as they would go around him, pulling him close to me, tightly to me. He resisted at first, almost pushing me backward away from him. But then he gave way, and he wrapped his arms around me, nearly crushing me under his drunken weight.

My mind was still reeling; it was not by chance that Mark Ford Brady had pulled Bobby into his case to find those scrap books. There was meaning behind every manipulation between Brady and Bobby in the days leading up to Bobby's mother's death. I knew that Bobby's life had splintered when his mother had died. Bobby had been walking like a ghost, keeping this information inside, trying to make sense of something that made no sense.

"God help me." He pleaded. And, then he scrambled by me, back toward the bathroom, and I could hear him get sick.

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**A/N:**_pfchristine offered this. I'm not sure if this is the meaning of the quote in context, but this is what popped into my brain when I read it. I immediately thought of the cat and mouse between Mark Ford Brady and Bobby in Endgame. A meaning behind every little thing…_


	19. The ties that bind

_**A good friend is a connection to life - a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world**_

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"Lucy." Someone was saying my name, softly, distantly. "Lucy." Some was still calling me, a little closer now. "Lucy." Yelling, someone just yelled my name.

I awoke with a start, I opened my eyes and didn't recognize where I was so I sat up quickly feeling disoriented. The top of my head smacked right into something very hard – Bobby's head. I hit him so hard that I sent him staggering backward, and he landed on his backside in his family room, his right hand over his right eye.

"Holy crap." Bobby muttered to himself. "What the hell are you doing here?" He pulled his hand away from his eye, I could tell he was going to be black and blue. I was holding the top of my head with my hand, blinking against the rainbow of pain from hitting my head against his. I managed to glance at my watch, just after 5:00am. I had 2 hours of sleep, maybe. I wondered how on earth Bobby could be up and walking around.

"Are you still drunk?" I asked, squinting at him, trying to focus on him. He was sprawled on the floor, his hand covering his eye again.

"What?" He asked, moving slowly, clumsily, trying to stand. And, I knew he was still drunk. Someone just doesn't sober up that quickly. Though, he was able to stand and look at me, so even if he was still a little drunk, he was much more coherent than he had been a few hours ago. He moved to sit down on the end of the sofa, almost crushing my feet.

He sat there for a moment, holding his head. And, I sat there for a moment, holding my head. Then when my head stopped throbbing so violently, I moved off the couch and went to the kitchen to get some water. I returned with two bottles of water from his fridge, and a bag of frozen peas from his freezer.

"Let me see." I said, moving his hand from his head, softly placing the bag of frozen peas over his eye. "Sorry about that." I placed the bottle of water in his hand, and sat down on the coffee table across from him.

"What are you doing here?" Bobby repeated the question. He was leaning back against the sofa, both of his eyes closed underneath the frozen bag of peas. He opened the bottle of water and drank deeply. The little bit of rehydration would be good for him.

"I came by last night to talk with you about something." I looked at him, realizing that maybe he didn't remember me coming by.

"Did we talk about something?" He kept the icy bag over his eyes.

"Yeah, yeah we did." I said, not really knowing how to proceed. I watched him lean forward, taking the bag of frozen peas away from his eyes. He was looking at me, with the kind of "and…" expression on his face. I did not say anything.

"This is the part where you fill me in." He said, kind of tilting his head, examining me a bit more closely. I was fairly certain that he could see the conflict in my eyes.

"You told me what your mom said to you before she passed away." I just spit it out. He looked at me without blinking. "About you, and her, and Mark Ford Brady." I said, and this time he closed he eyes, placing his forehead forward into his hands, where he held the frozen bag of peas. "You were kind of drunk…" I offered.

"I'm kind of drunk now." He replied. "I would say that I was more than _kind of_ drunk when you came by." He mumbled. "And what did I say?" He asked.

"That you wondered about your last name." I replied, leaning forward toward him, wanting to reach out to him.

"I don't want to talk about that." He said.

"I don't want to talk about that either." I replied, and my words caused him to look up at me, a bit of surprise on his face. "Eventually you may want to _do_ something about that, and I want you to know, that you should call me, or get me, or if you want me, or you need me, or actually even if you don't want me or need me, when it comes time to do something about that, I'll be there." I looked at him for a long, quiet moment. And, eventually he nodded.

"You came by to talk to me about that?" He asked, and I knew that he wasn't really genuinely asking me the question. It was obvious I hadn't come by to talk to him about that.

"I came by to let you know that I ended things with Emil." I leaned back a bit, breathed in a bit.

"You what?" He asked, blinking at me, shaking his head a bit as if he hadn't heard me quite right.

"He's taking this thing, in Los Angeles. A temporary thing to begin with." I continued talking.

"Is that why you ended things?" Bobby asked.

"No, I did that, and then he took the LA thing." I tried for another breath, my face felt a little flushed, I really didn't like talking about it. The decision was still very raw inside of me. I stood, running my hands down my thighs, tugging at my shirt, straightening it.

"If you touch your hair next I'm going to grab your hands." Bobby stood as well, looking down at me.

"I should go." I was shaking a bit. "You should go back to bed. You'll sober up eventually." I tried to change the subject.

"I always do." He replied, as if sometimes he didn't want to sober up.

"I'm sorry." He offered, recognizing that I was hurting.

"So am I." I replied. "I should go." I said the words again, this time stepping around him.

"Thanks." He said to me, and I turned, this time I was surprised by what he had said. But, when I looked at him, I understood. He was thanking me for coming by, for listening to him, for not pressing him about what he had said to me. I nodded, and smiled a bit. And, then I left.

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**A/N:** _Thanks for reading and reviewing. Most other fictions have a case file... so it is cool to see an interest with no murder mystery. Though, maybe Bobby is the mystery..._


	20. Comfort food

_**Friends are the marshmallows in the hot chocolate of life**_

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I stood in my kitchen dumping marshmallows into a large glass bowl and adding the appropriate amount of butter. I placed the bowl into the microwave and pressed the speedy-minute button. I was still exhausted from the combination of lack of sleep and terrible sleep on Bobby's couch. I reached up and could feel a small knot on my forehead from where I had given him a black eye. As I watched the marshmallows swell and puff, I couldn't fathom why I had committed myself to making and bringing a god-awful amount of rice krispie treats to my nephew Jake's basketball game. There was to be some kind of sale before and afterward, and I had about 2 hours to complete my task and get there on time.

Knock, knock, knock. Someone was at my door. I drifted out of the kitchen toward my front door. I threw the locks and was astounded to see Bobby on my doorstep. He had showered and shaved, and was actually looking presentable in a dark t-shirt and clean khaki's, underneath his unbuttoned winter coat.

"Nice." I smiled up at him, but I was clearly referring to his black eye. His eye was not actually very swollen, but his orbital bone was a fantastic array of black and blue bruise-like colors.

"Yeah." He said, touching his eye and wincing slightly.

Beep. Beep. The microwave yelled at me telling me my marshmallows were sufficiently puffed.

"Oh Jeez." I exclaimed, and dashed back toward the kitchen leaving Bobby in the doorway. Just after the marshmallows have puffed is kind of a critical moment in combining the ingredients for rice krispie treats. I grabbed the bowl from the microwave and stirred the marshmallows and melted butter together and was dumping in the rice krispies when Bobby walked into the kitchen.

"What're doing?" He asked.

"Hand me that." I gestured toward the rectangular glass baking dish. He did as asked, watching me combine a massive amount of rice krispies with a mess of sticky marshmallow. I then dumped the whole thing into the rectangular glass dish and starting pressing the mixture evenly down into the pan. "Making rice krispie treats." I answered.

"I can see that." He looked around my kitchen at the 4 boxes of rice krispie cereal, the 4 bags of marshmallows, the container of saran-wrap.

"There's a bake sale at Jake's school, before and after his game today. I promised Laura I would bring these." I replied, looking at my hands, which were somehow covered in marshmallow and rice krispies.

"You don't bake these." Bobby looked at me, and I didn't know if he was joking or not.

"You're a funny guy." I finally replied, eating some of the gooey rice-krispie-stuff off my hands.

"Yeah, I can be." He said, doing that head tilt thing he did sometimes, especially when he was thinking something, or wanted something. "Can I have some?" He asked.

"You have to make some first." I replied. "I have a lot of these to make." I watched him reach out and retrieve some of the leftovers from the glass bowl.

"Sure." He popped the goodness that is warm rice-krispie-stuff into his mouth. "How're you getting there?" He asked.

"Bruce is coming to pick me up in about an hour." I referred to my brother-n-law as I took the bowl away from Bobby so I could rinse and start again. I figured I needed to make about 4 batches. "Or, you could come with me." I offered, thinking that Bobby would probably enjoy Jake's game.

"I could do that." He said.

"You could do this too." I handed him the bowl to dry. "Dump those marshmallows in, add that butter, and I'll call Bruce and let him know I have a ride." He watched me walk across the kitchen to grab the phone, a smile on his face. It was nice to see him smile, after last night and this morning, I wondered how it would be the next time I saw him. We both needed something a little mundane. And, this was perfect. Nothing said comfort like rice krispie treats for a high school bake sale for the basketball team.

* * *

**A/N:** _Inexplicably, when I think about marshmallows, I think about rice krispie treats. Thanks to deliriousdancer for this nice inspiration. Of course, I will have to make some of these. They really are incredible when they are still warm :)_


	21. A late night

_**Friends are relatives you make for yourself**_

_**

* * *

**_11:11pm 

"Hello." My voice was a hoarse whisper as I answered the phone. I felt like it was the middle of the night. A look at my digital bed side clock revealed it was just after 11:00pm.

"Lucy?" It was my sister Laura.

"Yeah, sis, is everything OK?" I cleared my throat and rolled over onto my back in bed, keeping the phone to my ear, closing my eyes.

"I don't know." Laura said, but I could hear in her voice that there was probably nothing seriously wrong. She sounded more peeved about something than upset or concerned. "Where is Bruce?" She asked me.

"I don't know, where is Bruce?" I asked her question back to her. I had no idea where Bruce was, the last time I saw him was earlier in the evening at Jake's basketball game.

"Stop it." My sister reprimanded me, like she did when we were little.

"Laura, I was asleep." I replied, desperately wanting to go back to sleep.

"Well, I wasn't. Bruce is not home." Laura replied.

"OK, do you know where he is?" I asked, thinking she sounded like she had a pretty good idea where he was.

"He's out." Laura replied.

"Out?" I asked, and then I remembered. He went out with Bobby and Jake. Bobby had dropped me off, but he had mentioned he had plans to meet Bruce and Jake for pizza after the game. I had fallen asleep in the car on the way home, so I hadn't really been listening. I had simply kind of incoherently nodded and made my way inside, my only thought was to get into my soft, comfortable bed.

"He's out with Bobby." Laura expanded her original statement.

"Isn't only 11:00pm?" I asked, and immediately regretted it.

"Yeah, it's 11:00pm. He hasn't called, and his cell phone is rolling right into voice mail. I bet his damn battery is dead." Laura spat into the phone. She was pissed, and for some crazy reason I was getting the feeling she was pissed at me. "Jake called, he's out with Beth. Bruce stayed at the pizza place with Bobby."

"Why are you calling me?" I asked, I was starting to fall asleep again.

"I need Bobby's cell phone number." Laura said. At this, I opened my eyes, and felt a bit more alert. I was not going to give my sister Bobby's cell phone number so she could call and yell at them for being out at 11:00pm.

"I'll have Bruce call you to check in." I said. "Goodnight Laura." I hung up the phone before she could say anything further.

"HELLO." Bobby shouted into his cell phone. I could hear loud jazz type music in the background. Bruce loved jazz, Laura hated jazz. I could just imagine my brother-n-law having a fantastic time at some jazz club.

"BOBBY." I yelled back into the phone so he could hear me.

"LUCY." He shouted in return. "HOLD ON." He said and I could hear him moving, and the background music softening. "Is everything OK?" Bobby asked.

"Fine." I said, rolling over onto my stomach in bed, again wishing I was asleep.

"Why are you calling?" Bobby asked the obvious. If everything was fine, why was I calling. "Shouldn't you be asleep? You were sound asleep in the car. Like, mouth open asleep." Bobby said, and I could hear him laugh to himself.

"Laura would like for Bruce to call and check in." I said.

"I bet." Bobby replied. I could not help but smile. Bruce and Laura had a great relationship. They had married when they were 21, and about 2 decades later they were still happily married. Bruce rarely went out without Laura, so it seemed like no huge thing for him to be out tonight.

"Could you have him call her?" I asked.

"I'll give him the message." Bobby hedged, meaning he would not make Bruce call, he would simply relay the message. But I knew that Bruce would call.

"Thanks." I said, yawning into the phone.

"Is that it?" Bobby asked.

"Yeah. Have fun." I yawned again.

"You too." He said, and hung up the phone. That made no sense to me, making me wonder, if he was making much sense to anyone. He was drunk, again. At least he was out getting drunk and having fun.

2:22am

"Hello?" I answered my phone, again, my voice a hoarse whisper.

"Hey, let me in." It was Bobby this time.

"What?" I rolled over and looked at my clock and groaned.

"Let me in." Bobby repeated.

"Let you in where?" My sleep addled brain was not catching on.

"Let us in." A different voice shouted into the phone.

"Bruce?" I asked, opening my eyes.

"Your front door." Bruce yelled. "Let us in."

I nearly fell out of bed. I slid my feel into my slippers and struggled into my favorite old sweatshirt to cover up the cotton camisole and pajama pants I slept in. I opened my front door to find a very drunk Bobby and a very drunk Bruce at my front door.

"Oh, you're in so much trouble." I laughed, smiling at Bruce. They looked like two brothers, Bruce's arm slung around Bobby for balance.

"Laura's fine, she didn't want me coming back out of the city. I told here we were just a few blocks from your place." Bruce's words slurred together so much they sounded like one almost unintelligible word.

"A few blocks?" I asked, thinking about the closest place near to me that had good jazz was about 10 blocks.

"Couch is mine." Bobby pulled Bruce into my home.

"You can have the guest bed." I said to Bruce, and watched him stumble toward the guest room. I watched Bobby do a Nest-tea plunge onto my sofa. He reached up with his left hand and grabbed the afghan over top of him, and pushed off his shoes. At least now, with everyone asleep somewhere I would finally get to sleep for the rest of the night.

3:33am

"Yeah." I answered the phone, not even able to say hello.

"Is Bruce there?" Laura asked.

"Yeah." I said, barely moving in my bed.

"Is he OK?" Laura asked.

"Yeah." I replied.

"Thanks." Laura said softly.

"Yeah." I hung up the phone, and immediately fell back asleep.

* * *

**A/N:** _Fluffy, I know. But it seems like fanfiction-land likes to give Bobby a family... I'm sure my mood will change back to the angsty stuff soon :)_


	22. Faith

_**Life is fortified by many friendships - to love and be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.**_

* * *

"You look, well you look somber today." I said to Bobby. I had initially thought to tell him he looked nice, freshly showered, shaved, beautiful dark suit. But, there was something about his choice of shirt and tie that made him look somber. Or, maybe it was the expression in his eyes. 

"I'm going to this thing with Eames." He said, distracted by whatever he was reading in some file folder in that portfolio of his. I was munching on a salad starting to wonder why he had wanted to meet for lunch, when his mind was so clearly at work.

"What thing?" I asked, a bit intrusive. Honestly, I didn't really think it was necessarily my business to know, I was mainly trying to pull him away from what he was reading. Sometimes I thought he simply liked to have me around, that the active interaction part wasn't necessarily key. But, I had stepped away from my office to meet him for lunch. So, finally I said, "Bobby, if I had known we would simply be sharing a table, and not necessarily sharing a conversation, I would have brought along something to read as well."

"A funeral." He answered me, and I kind of blinked a bit, taken aback. He was answering my "what thing" not my larger point about being distracted by his work. The folder remained in hand, his eyes remained on whatever printouts he was studying. I reached out, placing my hand on his sacred portfolio, which caught his attention. He looked up at me. "I'm going to a funeral with Eames." He said.

I sighed, rephrasing into a complete sentence while looking at me was a bit better. I hadn't heard about anything within NYPD, so I was thinking that the funeral was personal to Alex Eames. I thought about Bobby taking time off from work to go with her. I thought about what it would take for Alex to even communicate effectively to Bobby that it was important to her that he should attend.

"I'm so sorry. Someone in her family?" I asked.

"Yeah, yeah, her grandmother." He allowed, his eyes and his mind moving back away from conversation.

"Bobby." I said his name, and he looked up at me, distracted, frustrated. I softly reached out and took the folder, placed it in his portfolio, and closed the leather case.

"Lucy." He mocked me a bit by saying my name with the same tone in which I had said his.

"Please let Alex know I am sorry for her loss." I said, reaching for the check the server had left us.

"I will." He said, and he sighed, as if something else was on his mind.

"What is it?" I prodded.

"I don't like funerals." He leaned his face on his hand, and with his free hand he picked at his cold french fries.

"It must be important to Alex, otherwise she would not have made a point in inviting you." I replied. Alex needed him, she rarely admitted to that, but she probably needed the people she counted as family and friends around. I guessed that Bobby would be a support to her because he was not also grieving. He probably did not know her grandmother. So, Bobby would be there just for her.

"Yeah." He replied, sliding the french fry plate aside. "They're sad, you know." He said, looking like a little boy, surprising me a bit with his simplistic thought.

"It's OK that they're sad. You can only take the sting out of death by removing the love from of life." I said, finding myself repeating something that my mother had said to me once. I took her words to heart, to treasure life, to treasure love and friendship, and to not avoid the good things because they sometimes came with sad things.

Bobby looked at me; I could tell he was considering my words. He wasn't exactly a man that took a lot of emotional risks in life. He held his personal feelings close, and in part, I knew he did that because he had to do that to survive his family.

I was about to say something else, something philosophical, that would further the conversation a bit. But then I realized, like a lightning bolt to the head, what should have been patently obvious to me the moment he called me to spontaneously ask me to lunch and then proceeded to pretty much avoid any conversation with me during lunch. "Are you avoiding something?" I asked.

"What?" He said, pulling out his wallet.

"Are you supposed to be somewhere? Is Alex expecting you and you are sitting here?" I said, looking at my watch, looking at him. And, I knew, I knew I was right. "Are you late?" I asked.

"No. I'm not late." He said, paying his share of lunch.

"Oh thank God." I said.

"Why do you do that?" He stood, lifting his coat.

"Do what?" I did not understand his question.

"Why do you thank God?" He asked, and I could tell that he hadn't really been considering a case file, and that his mind had not been on work. He was headed to a funeral, to support a friend, and his thoughts had been on much bigger things, perhaps on life and faith. He was in such a dark place, trying to put the details of his life in place. Sometimes he saw through it all, sometimes he stayed lost in it all.

"It's an expression." I hedged.

"Not with you, it's more than an expression." He needled me a bit about my faith in God.

"Yeah, it's more than an expression." I allowed, but I offered no further explanation. Now was not the time for a conversation regarding faith. "Please, give Alex my sympathies." He looked at me, as if to say something else. "I'll take care of this," I said, indicating that he should go, and I would wait to finish settling the bill. He nodded, and I watched him go.

* * *

**Author's Note:** The adage is from Whitney. Thanks - it is an excellent adage. Also, this was sent to me in a PM: _You can only take the sting out of death by removing the love from of life_. I love these words, and my brain went through a million ways to use this, including the death of a character. But, in the end, this was the one that ended up on paper. I hope you enjoyed this. People would like to see more of Bobby and Alex, but that is tough when these are from Lucy's first person perspective. Lucy would not necessarily be privy to things between Bobby and Alex. As always, inspire my mood – send me a review :) 


	23. Lonely

_**Only solitary men know the full joys of friendship. Others have their family**____**but to a solitary and an exile his friends are everything.**_**_

* * *

_ **

I walked through the gallery back towards Annie office. I had a package that had been delivered to me secured safely in my bag. I was still in shock. I had literally fallen down when I had opened the box. Luckily there was a chair immediately behind me to catch my fall. The moment I read the note and looked at what I held in my hand, my brain ceased all coherent thought. All I knew was that I had to get to Annie. I had to get some perspective on this; I had to share this with her. 

"Anneliese Roberts." I could hear her answer the phone, and I smiled. Her given name sounded so funny to me. She would always be Annie to me. When I walked into her office she was listening carefully to the caller, jotted down some information on a notepad in front of her. "OK, thanks." She said, concluding the call, looking at me.

"Lucy. What's up?" I watched her take off her glasses and look up at me. Without saying anything I pulled the package from my bag and handed it to her with the note. I had read the note first, and then opened the box. In typical Annie style, she opened the box first, setting the note aside.

"What the hell is this?" She asked, her voice a little loud. "Holy crap, who sent you this?" She said. She was standing now, coming around her desk, the box in her hand, her mouth open.

"There is a note." I said, pointing to her desk. I watched her turn, and retrieve the note, managing to keep her eyes on the contents of the box. I had the note memorized, I had stared at it the entire cab ride over.__

_Lucy, __I was an idiot. __This is where I see us – now, months from now, a lifetime from now. __Marry me, __Emil _

"What the hell is this?" Annie waved the note in front of me, but she held the box very still. I reached out and took the note from her hands. It was Emil's hand writing, this was no joke. "This is incredible." Annie said, and for a moment, I thought she meant the whole thing about sending the note by messenger, but then I could see she was fixated on the contents of the box. 

Nestled against the dark velvet were a platinum wedding band and engagement ring. I watched Annie slide her forefinger through the platinum band and then the diamond solitaire. She had the rings balanced before her first knuckle on her first finger. I realized she was talking about the rings.

"This must be like 2, no 2 ½ carats, cushion cut, platinum setting. Incredible." Annie whispered, as if a normal voice would scare the rings away.

"Uh. What about this?" I waved the note around.

"What?" Annie said, "Oh, isn't he in California?" She asked.

"Yeah, he's in California." I replied, re-reading the note as if some how magically the contents might have changed. I was stunned. Why, why the hell was he doing this now?

"Wow." Annie was looking at the rings again.

"Annie, focus . What the hell was he thinking sending me this?" I asked, my voice a little shriek.

"They are beautiful." She said, still looking at the rings.

"Not those, this." I waved the note around. "This. What is he doing? What is he thinking? What is he thinking I'm going to do? Why does he always make these grand gestures when I push him away?" My voice was breaking, I could feel tears in my throat. This got Annie's attention, and she set the rings back in the box. She reached out and pulled me into her arms.

"What're you going to do?" She asked, as she held me."I don't know." I was crying. Why, why was this so hard? It was hard to be in love with him, hard not to be in love with him. I hated it. I hated that it that my heart would not obey my brain. My brain kept saying, turn off heart, turn off, but my heart would not listen. How do you turn off your heart?

"Ms. Roberts?" Penny, Annie's assistant knocked lightly and poked her head in. "You have a customer asking for you." Penny stated. "A Ms. Cassandra Wayne." Penny provided. I jumped out of Annie's arms as if I had been electrocuted.

"She is interested in purchasing one of the water colors, the new series." Annie provided. "Penny can handle the sale." Annie continued.

"Cassandra Wayne, Cassandra Wayne is standing out there?" I asked Annie, as if I couldn't possibly have heard correctly.

"You know she's a customer here." Annie replied.

"Yeah, I know." I said a bit sullenly.

"She's not my customer, she's Jackson's." Annie referred to the co-owner of the gallery.

"I know." I sniffed, still congested from crying. "Go ahead. I'll wait here."

"I'll explain that I'm busy, and either Penny can take care of her, or she can return when Jackson is here." Annie offered, and I nodded. Annie walked out of the office, and I picked up the box to look at the platinum rings. And then I looked at the familiar curves of Emil's writing. Why, why now? I asked myself again.

"She's coming back when Jackson is here." Annie said, smiling in such a way I thought there was a bit more to it.

"What?" I asked.

"Well, you know there is no such thing as coincidence." Annie said, "Don't be mad at me." Annie winced slightly, and stepped away from me, then she spit out the next words very quickly, "but how weird is it that she should show up here in this exact moment, so I told her that I was with you and that you were trying to decide how to respond to Emil's proposal. And, that I could not help her right now." She said it so fast I barely understood her.

"You what?" She was right, I was mad that she should share something so personal.

"I had to, I had to say it, I had to say it to her. You should've seen her face. She was all smug, you know, calling me out on a command performance to help her with a sale that Penny could have helped with. So then I simply said it, and she turned from smug, to kind of flushed and flustered. It was great." Annie smiled wickedly.

Something small inside of me was satisfied by Annie's pettiness. I chose not to take it up with Emil that Cassandra hadn't really been assaulted in that alleyway, that she had overreacted to something. Part of me knew that he probably knew. He had relationships with both the DAs office and the NYPD. I had wanted to let it be and let it go.

"What the hell?" I said, again looking at the note.

"Incredible." Annie repeated, looking at the rings.

_

* * *

_**Author's Note** This is a great adage, given to me from pfchristine. My brain would not let me alone on this one. I was listening to that song _Are You Alright_ by Lucinda West (incredible song), and the other day I watched re-runs of The Closer on my Tivo, and then this adage has been floating around in my brain. How could I not dream of JK Simmons/Emil? Plus, break-ups are never so neat and tidy... or simple. 


	24. Turn the table

_**Good friends are those who care without hesitation, who remember without limitation and who love even without communication**_

* * *

I was sound asleep on my sofa when a loud knocking pulled me awake. I lay there for a moment, trying to get my bearings, while the persistent person at my front door continued to pound away. My head still hurt from the hangover of a migraine, so I sat up slowly, placed my feet on the floor quietly.

"Coming. I'm coming." I tried to call out so that the person could hear me and quit that infernal knocking, but my voice was barely a whisper and there was no way they could hear me. I stood, holding to the sofa for a minute. Finally, I shuffled toward the door.

"Oh." Bobby said. "Are you sick?" He asked, looking at me as I winced up at him from the sheer volume of his voice.

"Head. Hurting." I said, touching my temple.

"Well, you look miserable." He softened his voice a bit, tilting his head in that sideways thing he did. I nodded. I was miserable, from my inside to my outside.

"Come in. I need some water." I said, and walked toward the kitchen. I could hear him super softly close the front door and throw the lock. I stood in the kitchen, slowly downing an entire glass of not-too-cold water. The medicine I took for migraines sometimes made me queasy. I realized after a few minutes that Bobby wasn't following me into the kitchen, so I retraced my steps trying to figure out where he had gone.

"What's this?" He held the note from Emil in his hands. I realized that it must have been on the coffee table in front of the sofa. I had been looking at it earlier, still feeling incredibly stunned. Like a cat, Bobby walked into my house and fixated on the one new thing, the one out of place thing, and was inexplicably drawn to it, drawn to investigate it.

"Did you read it?" I asked. Clearly he had, I had left it unfolded. I watched him nod.

"Are you moving to California?" He asked, taking me completely aback.

"No. My family is here." I said, rubbing my temples a bit, testing to see if I was feeling better.

"Right, Laura, Bruce, Jake, Annie…" Bobby was inventorying my life.

"You." I added, looking at him. He nodded at this as well. It was becoming clear to me that he was becoming increasingly more comfortable being included in my list of family. It was important to me that he should count himself on that list.

"When did you get this?" He asked, he was still keeping his voice even, quiet.

"Yesterday." I replied, walking into my family room, sitting in an overstuffed leather arm chair.

"Yesterday." He echoed, looking at the note, looking at me. I wasn't looking at Bobby. I was looking at the floor. I had realized I was wearing the rings. My thumb traced the outline of the cool metal bands on my ring finger. They fit perfectly, and as Annie had said yesterday, they really were incredible. I could still feel Bobby looking at me, considering me. Finally I looked up at him.

"You look miserable." He said again.

"You said that already." I reached up and gingerly ran my fingers through my tangled curls. "I am miserable." I admitted. Bobby paced slowly across my family room. "Why would he send this to me? Why now?" I asked.

"He's in love with you." Bobby replied, in that factual kind of stating the obvious way he had. I watched Bobby pace around a bit, touching things here and there, I could tell he was ruminating over something. "You guard your heart, you have this whole world inside your head, you only verbalize a small fraction of what you actually think, by the time you have said something, you have gone through this whole internal process, I'm sure it takes Skoda a while to catch up some times."

I was flabbergasted at what Bobby had just said to me. I could tell by his body language that he was analyzing me, he was pacing around my space, touching my things, getting inside my head. I wondered about the accuracy of his observation.

"I don't guard my heart." I said, wanting to deny what he had said to me.

"You do. Not with your family. You give your heart completely to your family. But you guard your heart with others, you guard your thoughts." He said, doing that hand gesture thing he did, to kind of emphasize what he was saying.

"Oh god." I leaned forward and placed my head in my hands.

"Whatever you do about this," He waved the note around, "don't just do it inside your head. Do it with Skoda." Bobby said, coming to stand in front of me. I kept my eyes closed; I kept my head in my hands. I was thinking that in my friendships, Annie was like my other half; we were friends because Annie was what I was not.

In that moment I realized the instant connection I had with Bobby was not because he was what I was not, we were in fact connected because we were close to the same. What he had just said to me, was exactly what I would have said to him. We were fast friends because we understood each other, we shared a cerebral nature, and we shared a conservation of words. Bobby was reminding me that people needed the process, that not everyone skipped A to Z, some needed to go through B and C. I smiled to myself, thinking that Bobby was the pot calling the kettle black.

"Why'd you come by?" I asked, looking up at him.

"You weren't answering your phone, work, cell, or home." He said, revealing his meticulous, thorough nature. "I'm late, I should go." He had come by to check on me. From the family room, I watched him head out the door. I looked at the rings on my hand, at the note that Bobby had managed to return to the exact same location and position he had found it. I crawled back toward the sofa, thinking that once I got rid of the rest of this headache, I would have to stop putting off the inevitable and contact Emil.

* * *

**Author's Note:** _PennOHara asked me why I often portray "off-duty-Mike Logan" so drunk and miserable. I realized I often portray "off-duty Bobby" the same way. So turn the table, right? _


	25. Messy

_**Life is messy. Friends help you clean it up.**_

* * *

My heart was pounding so hard in my chest that I could feel it in my throat. I stood outside Emil's condominium. I had called and left a message for him, and he had returned my call to say he was flying home to New York. He had finally reached me at my office earlier today, and we had arranged to meet. At first, I had suggested we meet for drinks. He had quickly derailed that idea and invited me to his place. I paused, but I accepted. 

I smoothed my hands down my wide-legged black pants, I straightened my black sweater, and I tucked my hair behind my ears, and then I smiled to myself. Some habits really did die hard, and some just never died. Then I reached up and knocked lightly. I could hear him moving through the condo to answer the door.

"Lucy." He smiled at me, and reached out to take my coat. I walked into his condo, looking around, and thinking about the amount of time that had passed since I had last been here.

"Hi." I returned his smile, and stood a bit awkwardly, not knowing where to go. It was strange, to feel so awkward with him.

"Can I get you something? Something to drink?" He asked, and I watched him move toward his kitchen. I could see an empty highball glass on his counter, I thought that maybe he had a little something to steady-up, I thought that maybe he was feeling as awkward as I was.

"Sure." I followed him toward the kitchen, and stood on the other side of the high counter top that divided the kitchen from the main living area.

"Wine?" He asked, reaching for a bottle.

"Water." I replied, thinking the wine would either make my stomach hurt worse, or give me a headache. He nodded, and poured a generous amount of sparkling water into a large wine glass. I took a sip. "How was your flight?" I asked, and I could feel him looking at my hands, looking at my left hand. I had the rings in their box in my bag.

"Fine." He nodded, and I watched him pour himself two fingers of white tequila.

"Good." I replied, a bit lamely.

"How have you been?" He asked, taking a deep sip of his drink, placing the glass back on the counter, fiddling with it a bit as he studied me. I looked at him, not knowing how to reply. How had I been? Sick, was the honest response. My migraines were not going away, the medication made me nauseous, I was not sleeping well, and then by messenger I had received what he had sent, and things had just gotten worse.

"How have I been?" I repeated his question, not wanting to answer. "Why?" I asked softly, setting my glass of water on the counter beside his glass of tequila. "Why, why are you asking me?" I said, placing my palms face down on the counter, beside my glass, which was beside his glass.

"Lucy." He said my name, and placed his hands near mine, the high counter separating us.

"Why did you send that to me?" I swore to myself I wasn't going to cry.

"I'm in love with you, I want to marry you." He said, looking at me, his eyes holding mine. I looked at him, I could feel my insides shaking, feel them breaking.

"Emil." I said his name, and my voice broke. My brain was shouting, _unfair, you're being unfair_.

"Give me a chance." He said. "I meant what I said when I came to your house that day. I'm in love with you, only you, I want to be with only you. I'm tired of on-sometimes, off-sometimes, I'm tired of you pushing me away." He said, and at that, my mouth fell open.

"Me?" I said, "pushing you away?" My head was shaking in the no direction. "Me?" I asked. He looked at me perplexed.

"I let you. I let you push me away." He said, thoughtfully.

"I, um, I…" I couldn't figure out what to say. _He_ pushed _me_ away.

"You would withdraw from me, and I would try to figure out why, but in the end, I would simply give you the space you needed, until you would let me back in." He continued, my mind was reeling, trying to comprehend what he was saying. "But I don't want that anymore. So, I told you, I wanted only you. And, then you meet me for drinks one night, ask me where I see us, you don't give me a chance to say anything, and then you leave." Emil continued. "And, so I thought that was it, I had to let you go. I thought maybe that you had something with Goren. Maybe you don't push on him like you do with me. So I took the thing in California. But, I can't get you out of my mind." Emil continued, looking at me. I continued struggling, trying to make sense of what he was saying. "I can see it, you know, see it. When your dad died, it's like it broke your heart. So, you put some walls up. Then, your mom, she passed away as well. And, more walls, fewer risks with your feelings. So, each time I could feel us getting close, it was as if you couldn't take the risk, you couldn't take the risk of loving someone so completely, of needing someone so completely, of depending on someone, of letting someone in. So, you would push on me, and then finally I would officially call a break. Then, once you had some distance, you would open yourself to me, and I would come back again."

He was still talking, and part of me felt like he was talking a foreign language, but a growing part of me was thinking about what he was saying, the reality of what he was saying. It was easy for me to look at other people, to think about other people, to analyze their lives, their motivations, to understand their actions. And, at work, it was easy for me to encourage people to reflect on their thoughts, their feelings, their actions. But apparently, I wasn't so good at myself. First Bobby tells me I guard my heart, now Emil tells me the same thing.

"You, you pulled away from me. You were the one to say you needed space, you needed time." I said, I realized I was actually pointing at him, and I placed my hands back on the counter. "You, you were the one who would see other people." I said, looking down at my hands, unable to meet his gaze.

"I said those things in response to you. You wouldn't say them, you would simply withdraw from me. What was I supposed to do?" Emil tried to catch my eyes, but I wouldn't look at him, I couldn't look at him.

"Not see other people." I whispered.

"I love you. I'm in love with you." Emil said, he moved his hands closer to mind, and I stepped away. I could feel the tears in my eyes. My life was not making sense, but I knew, I knew part of what he was saying was right.

"Two of us. There are two of us." I said, standing a few steps back from the counter looking at him. "You say I pushed you away, why didn't you say something?" I tried to make sense of this.

"You're right. Maybe it was easy for me or convenient for me at the time. So, I made it easy. And I did, I did see other people, you told me to see other people. You said you wanted to see other people." He replied, and I watched him walk around the counter toward me. "But not this time. I'm not letting things go so easy this time." He said. "I'm in love with you. You. I love you. I want to be with you. I want to marry you." He said the words, softly. He was standing in front of me, so close we should have been touching, but we were still a breath away. "I know you love me." He said "Please, just let yourself love me."

"This is too much. This isn't what I thought. I didn't think…" I couldn't say what I wanted to say. I had never envisioned the conversation between us going like this. I had it all laid in my mind, I had things all figured out. This was so far from what I had thought, that I couldn't respond. "I have to go." I finally said.

"Lucy." Emil stepped sideways, following me.

"I'm not running away. I heard what you said. I feel what you said. Please, just let me come by in the morning. I will come over in the morning." I said, and took a step toward my coat, a step toward the door. He caught me, gently with his hands on my arms, and looked at me. For a moment I thought he was going to say something, but he didn't. Instead, he leaned in slowly, and kissed me ever so softly, that this time I did feel my insides break.

Emil was right, I loved him, I was in love with him, madly, unreasonably, and it scared the hell out of me. I thought it had scared me because he did not return those feelings, but perhaps it had scared me because what he said was right, I couldn't stand the thought of loss in my life. I thought about my mother's words to me, _you __can only take the sting out of death by removing the love from of life_. If you take away the sad, you take away the good. I felt so mixed up, I couldn't think straight. I knew that Emil was a part of all of this to, but I realized that he was not the only part.

"I will see you in the morning." He said, and he let me go.

* * *

I had asked the cab driver to stop about a block away from my home. The stuffiness of the cab was making me feel claustrophobic. I had to get out in the fresh air. So, I planned to walk the last block and try to clear my head. For a moment, after I left the cab, I simply stood gulping in the cold night air. 

My mind was almost frozen with everything Emil had said. Perception was such a powerful thing. Emil was right; I mourned the loss of my parents. I was in my 20's when my dad died, in my 30's when my mom followed. Not as young as many people, but probably younger than most. And, maybe he was right, that I did push on him, I did withdraw from him. But he was also right when he said he withdrew as well, that maybe it was convenient.

I realized as I walked the block that I still carried the rings he had given me. I had planned to give them back. But what he had said to me sent me so off balance that I hadn't given them to him. I knew something now that I hadn't known before, and I knew it with absolute certainty, he did love me, he loved me completely.

I was so lost in my own thoughts that I almost stepped on Bobby Goren as I neared my front door.

"Earth to Lucy." Bobby smiled up at me, his cheeks a little red from sitting outside in the cold night air.

It struck me, for the second time in as many days that Bobby Goren was like some kind of cat, maybe a stray cat. You know, the kind that shows up at your door, a little hungry, a little disheveled, wanting to sleep on your couch a bit, soak up the warmth of your home a bit, then when all is restored, it goes back off in the world again, only to return a different day and repeat the process.

"Bobby." I gave him my keys so he could get the door.

"Are you going to marry Emil?" He asked, as we walked through my front door together. I irrationally thought about something Jake had said the other day – _you can pick your friends, your can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friends nose_. I thought, funny thing - social boundaries, some people have them, some people don't. Bobby was the type of guy who didn't always respect them, or maybe he just didn't have them. So, if there was something he needed to get to, or something he needed to know, he would probably try to proverbially pick the other guy's nose, ignoring boundaries, not seeing the inappropriate nature of his actions, or his questions.

"I don't know." I said, speaking the truth.

"Did he hurt you?" Bobby asked, and I knew that he didn't mean physically.

"Not any more than I've hurt him." I surprised myself with what I said. It was the first time I could see my relationship with Emil from a more complete perspective.

"Do you have anything to eat?" He asked, and I smiled. I actually was a little hungry.

"Feed a mess?" I said to him, as I followed him into the kitchen. "That's my advice right? Take care of the basic needs, when someone is a mess, feed them, tuck them in to bed…"

"Something like that." He admitted. But I didn't care he was using my own advice against me, I simply followed him into my kitchen.

* * *

**Author's Note:** So, aspiemom sent me the_ …you can pick your friends, you can pick your nose… _made me laugh thinking about. Tzeitl mentioned that she identified with my protagonist Lucy. And I thought – "wow I have a protagonist". In as much as I enjoy reading just about everything, sometimes I think it is hard to post non-Alex-Bobby ship on this board and keep people reading. So, I hope you are still enjoying reading. 


	26. Warm winter sun

_**A friend is a person who knows what you are saying, even if you're not talking**_

_

* * *

_

I was up with the sun and restless. So I bundled up in some warm winter gear and went out for a walk. There was a place not too far away that had a nice selection of tea; and even though I kept some of my favorite teas in my own kitchen, I decided the walk would do me good.

I was just returning down my block when I noticed that Bobby had shown up on my doorstep. I could see him sprawled on the steps in front of my home. It was only about 7:00 in the morning, so I figured he hadn't been to sleep the night before. I knew he was working a particularly difficult case, I knew it was a multiple homicide and children were involved, I knew the police were running out of leads. Of course, everyone who watched the news knew these things as well. It was not as if I had seen Bobby in the last 72 hours or so. I figured something must have jumped in terms of the case to have him on my doorstep at dawn.

"Hey stranger." I said, as I walked up the steps.

"Hey yourself." Bobby replied, remaining seated, so I sat down next to him. I figured he couldn't have been sitting there long; I had only been gone for about ½ and hour.

"So, why are you on my doorstep at 7:00 in the morning?" I asked.

"I couldn't sleep." Bobby replied, running the back of his wrist over his nose, his face.

"Yeah, I'm familiar with that." I replied, thinking about how little sleep I had been getting the past few days. I turned to get a better look at him. If he wanted to talk about the case, I figured he would talk about the case. Otherwise, I figured he came here to not talk about the case, so I would try to respect that as well.

"Do you miss your mother?" He asked me, and his question too me completely aback.

"What?"

"Your mom." He said, looking at me, holding my eyes with his. "Do you miss her?" I met his gaze, but I did not answering right away. "When I was here, the other morning, you had photographs of your mom out in the kitchen." He said.

I remembered. What Emil had said to me, opened something inside of me that I hadn't allowed myself to feel in a long time. Emil was right; I hadn't really let anyone new into my life since their death. I had known Annie since I was a little girl. Emil and I had met before my mom passed away. The only thing that didn't really fit was my relationship with Bobby.

"Yeah. Yeah, I miss my mom. All the time." I admitted, "And my dad, I miss my dad too." I had really been missing them both these past few days. I thought about what Bobby had said about noticing the photographs. He really was disturbingly observant. Though, it occurred to me that Bobby seemed to usually ask about something pretty much the first moment it popped into his head. So, I thought that something more recent may have happened that caused him to reflect about those photographs. So, I asked "Why? Why'd you ask me that?"

"Why?" He repeated the question, as if he forgot he was the one who had asked.

"Why did you ask me about my mom?" I asked. He answered rather indirectly, but his answer revealed a lot.

"I don't, I don't think I miss my mom. I think it's OK, it's OK that she's gone." He said, and his voice was so sad, that my heart ached for him.

"Her life, she had a difficult life." I said, my voice soft, humbled by his admission.

"Yeah, a difficult life." He used my words, and I knew that he was thinking about his mom's life, about his life, and it occurred to me that it wasn't necessarily a jump in the case that had him on my doorstep. He was on my doorstep because he had him thinking about his family.

We sat in silence for a while, feeling the rising sun on our faces. I continued to think about what he had said, about not missing his mom. It was kind of two different things really. He could miss her, and still feel strangely relieved by her death. I guessed he was trying to reconcile those feelings.

"Are you going to marry Emil?" Bobby asked. I sighed, and this time it was me who kind of rubbed my hand across my face, my forehead.

"I don't know." I replied. I really didn't know. A few days ago I thought I knew the answer.

"You don't know." He looked at me, puzzled, as if he were surprised that I didn't know. I knew that he liked to _know_ things, he liked to categorize things, right or wrong, black or white, yes or no, innocent or guilty. I guessed that this was why he was having a hard time reconciling some of his feelings over his mother's death - miss her or don't miss her. Life was not like that, life was full of the inbetween. It was a contradiction of mine, I could see that inbetween in other people, but in my own life I realized I was like Bobby, and I liked to know things.

When I had gone to talk with Emil the next morning, he asked me to stay in that "inbetween." He had asked me to consider what he was saying; he apologized for not saying it sooner. He again had told me he was in love with me, and that he wanted to marry me. He asked me not to try to rush through what I was feeling and what I was thinking. He pointed out that when I rushed through something I made the conservative decision, and here the conservative decision would be to withdraw from the people around me. Sometimes I found it a bit too easy to live inside my head, or through the lives of others, and not really engage in my own life.

So naturally my mind went back to Bobby, and his struggle with not knowing, I knew that the issue of his paternity was pressing down on him, and I knew that it would only press harder until he was able to know for certain, or manage to live with the not knowing. And I felt that the chances for the latter happening were slim.

"I don't know." I repeated, and I closed my eyes and tilted my face up toward the warm winter sun.

* * *

**A/N:** Let's get back to Bobby... I rewatched Untethered, such an image at the end, Bobby standing there in the middle of the city kind of stuck in an inbetween. 


	27. A funny friend

_**A warm meal and a funny friend make for a nice day's end**_

* * *

"Lucy." I turned to see who was calling my name and was surprised to see Mike Logan coming down the courthouse hallway in my direction. I smiled, and gave him a slight wave.

"Hi Mike Logan." I said, using his full name. He had that kind of name, the kind where the last name was as good sounding as the first.

"You done here for the day?" He asked, looking at his watch, putting on his coat.

"Yeah, I was just headed out the door." I replied. He reached out to hold my briefcase while I put on my coat.

"Hungry?" He asked, helping me on with my coat as well holding my briefcase.

"Actually, yeah, I'm hungry." I smiled.

"I know this great Pizza place, just a block or so." He offered, and I nodded. Pizza sounded perfect, so we headed out of the courthouse together. We walked the distance in a comfortable silence, kind of bracing against the cold.

"Testifying?" I asked him about why he was at the courthouse.

"Not today, just checking in on a case." He answered. The server seated us in a small booth and handed us menus. "How do you like your pizza?" Mike asked.

"Pepperoni." I replied, not even really looking at the menu. As soon as Mike had mentioned pizza, it was all I could think about having for dinner, so I was not interested in what else the place had to offer.

"Easy enough." Mike smiled. He had kind of a devilishly charming smile. I listened to him place the order, and order a beer for himself.

"Gingerale." I placed my drink order and handed the server my menu.

"Testifying?" He turned the question around to me.

"Yeah." I replied, "the Rollings case, maybe not on your radar." I replied.

"No, I know it. Child abuse, right?" He confirmed, and he was right. I was counseling the teenage boy who had attacked his abusive Uncle. I was providing testimony on behalf of the boy, who was charged with assault.

"Yeah." I nodded, the server was back with our drinks.

"I guess you know that Goren and Eames got that guy to confess." Mike put in, taking a drink of his beer. He referred to the multiple homicide case that Bobby had been working lately that had been consuming most of his days and his nights.

"Yeah, yeah I did." I replied, I had talked with Bobby briefly on the phone, he mentioned that they had closed the case. I had replied a bit cryptically, realizing I did not really want to talk about child abuse and multiple homicides. Mike smiled, getting the message.

"So, you don't drink?" Mike referred to my gingerale and his beer.

"Not often." I replied.

"I feel sorry for people who don't drink. They wake up in the morning and that's the best they're going to feel all day." Mike said, with a sly smile. I recognized the Dean Martin quote.

"A drink a day keeps the shrink away." I replied, with a quote of my own. He laughed at that one, perhaps especially humorous to him coming from me.

"Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough." Mike replied, quoting Mark Twain, which I thought was very literary of him. Though, I wondered if he knew it was Mark Twain, I thought the Dean Martin quote was more his style.

"First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you." I replied, with a little F. Scott Fitzgerald.

"You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on." Mike said, as the pizza was being served. I laughed. It was a nice end to a very long day.

* * *

**Author's Note:** So, I rewatched _In The Wee Small Hours_ the other day, and smiled over all of Mike Logan's knowledge about The Rat Pack. And, as a Tom Selleck lover, I have been suffering through that TV show _Las Vegas_. So the other night when that Dean Martin quote came up, I of course thought of the Mike Logan character. And, then I was handed this adage. Anyway, the planets aligned into something kind of fluffy… 


	28. I've got a secret

_**Between loving friends there need be no secrets, the trusting heart is always safe with another who truly cares **_

* * *

I was standing in my kitchen thinking about calling it an early night. I was trying to drink and entire glass of water with my medication, and that was taking some time. I have never really been able to slam back 8 ounces of anything. I had just taken the last small gulp and placed the glass in my sink when I heard the knock at my door. I thought about going upstairs to grab my robe. I was wearing a pajama undershirt and pajama pants, not terribly revealing, so I decided to simply head toward the door. I kind of figured that it would be Bobby standing there. These days, not many other people in my life dropped by unannounced at 10:00 at night.

"Bobby." I smiled, a self satisfied smile that I guessed correctly about him being the one knocking at my door. He was kind of hanging in my doorway, his hands braced against the upper door jamb, looking down at me. When I opened the door he practically fell inside. Showing up drunk on my doorstep was not an entirely unexpected thing.

"Do you have a secret?" He asked, as he ambled inside. He looked at me, and tried for his best penetrating gaze, which was not very penetrating since he was drunk.

"Do I have a secret?" I asked myself, wondering what he was talking about. Everyone had secrets. Though, in the scheme of things, I thought that maybe I had relatively few.

"Yeah, you know - a secret. Something you would like to share with me." He asked, shrugging off his coat, draping it on the leather chair in my family room. I watched him plop down on my sofa, kind of scratching his hand through his hair.

"A secret that I would like to share with you." I followed him into the family room, looking at him.

"Something that involves someone that isn't very good at keeping secrets." Bobby said, watching me walk over to sit on the coffee table in front of the sofa, so that I was facing him.

"What kind of a secret?" I asked, still having no clue what he was talking about. He rolled his eyes and stared at me like it was perfectly obvious what he was asking about and I was intentionally being obtuse.

"Did you go on a date with Mike Logan last night?" Bobby asked.

"What?" I asked. But, before I could deny it, I thought about the fact that I had indeed had dinner with Mike Logan last night. "We had dinner together." I allowed.

"Ah-ha!" Bobby said. "And how was dinner with Mike Logan?" Bobby inquired, now he was the one with the self satisfied smile on his face. Though I couldn't figure out why, I didn't really think of it as a date. I ran into Mike Logan at the courthouse, it was near dinner time, he asked me out for pizza, we each paid our own way, and he drove me home. I thought of it more as two hungry people grabbing a quick bite to eat.

"We split a pepperoni pizza. It was terribly romantic and intimate. Probably the best date I have been on in years." I replied.

"I can't believe you went on a date with Mike Logan." Bobby shook his head.

"I was kidding. It wasn't a date. It was pizza. We randomly ran into each other, we were hungry." I offered. "We each paid our own way." I started to try to explain when I realized Bobby was teasing me.

"Any other secrets you're trying to keep from me?" Bobby questioned me.

"Well, you know about my secret affair with Mike Logan. So, I think it's your turn to tell me one of your secrets." I turned it around. He lay down on his back across the sofa, and I moved to sit down across his legs.

"I think your couch is more comfortable than my bed." He allowed, throwing his arm across his eyes.

"I don't think that's a secret. For the amount of time you spend sleeping on my couch, I think I already know that." I replied.

"OK, I don't like sleeping in my bed, lonely." He said, his words slurring together. I realized that was a secret, he had never really said that before.

"I don't like the dark. You know, the pitch dark. I don't like the pitch black dark." I revealed something about myself. It wasn't often I had to deal with the pitch black dark. There was always ambient light from someplace, some electronic device, the streetlights outside, the moonlight.

"I'm having sex with a CSU. She has dark hair like yours, well, hers is straighter and shorter, but it is dark." He said, and my mouth fell open. I could kind of see the segue on the word dark, but the fact that he should reveal that he was having casual sex with someone was definitely a secret - secret up until now anyway.

"I guess that keeps you out of your bed." I replied, not really knowing how to reply, because I wasn't quite sure how I felt about it.

"True." He said, his arm still over his eyes. "Your turn."

"I have a neurologist appointment tomorrow, and I don't want to go. I'm tired of all of these tests and nothing definitive coming out of them." I leaned back across his legs into the back cushions of the couch. I could feel him reach for my hand and place his hand over top of mine.

"I miss my mother. She was who she was, and that in and of itself was a kind of constant" He replied, his tone serious, and he grabbed my hand to pull me over, so I was kind of laying in the crook of his arm. I could feel him pulling gently at my curls, softly pulling them straight then letting them bounce back up. I could feel his breathing deepen, even out, as he started to drift into passing out.

"I'm afraid, I'm afraid to say yes." I whispered, thinking about Emil wanting to marry me. I was afraid to need him and afraid to lose him.

"Robert Goren. Robert Brady. I don't want to be either." He said, softly. I laid my hand on his chest, I could feel his heart beat. His voice was just a mumble, but I had clearly heard his words.

"How about just be Bobby for a while." My voice was soft, and I could feel him fall asleep. So I lay there for a while, just feeling his heart beat beneath my hand.

* * *

**A/N:** _This was an excellent adage. Thanks Whitney!_


	29. Catch me

_**Good friends are there to catch you when you fall**_

_**

* * *

**_"Wow," When I stepped out of the restaurant with Bobby and looked up at the winter sky, I could see snow softly falling in the streams of light from the street lamps. We had met for an early dinner just after his shift, he was feeling a bit guilty because Alex was at the squad room waiting for an ME report. Bobby had mentioned that he was planning to go back by and check on things after we had finished eating. 

"Wow what?" Bobby asked.

"When did it start snowing?" I aksed, not noticing the snow from inside the restaurant.

"What?" Bobby looked at me, then looked up at the sky.

"Snowing." I held out my hands, looking into my palms to see the snow collecting on my dark gloves. I didn't see anything, so I blinked, opening and closing my eyes, then my hands.

"What?" Bobby repeated the question, so I looked back up in the sky, and I could see the snow falling through the moonlight, the starlight, against the light of the street lamps. I figured maybe my hands were still too warm from being inside for the snow to collect in my palms. I felt a bit dizzy as I looked upward, so I took a step backward.

"Snowing." I said, my voice sounded far away.

"Lucy, it's not snowing." I could hear Bobby, but I couldn't really see him very well against all of the bright snow in the sky. "Lucy, oh Jesus, Lucy." He said, and I closed my eyes against the pain exploding in my head and fell over backward toward the sidewalk.

"I think she fainted, she was just standing there, then she fell over, I think she fainted." I could hear a woman's voice, but I was having problems concentrating. My head felt like it was going to split open, I felt like I was going to throw up, instinctively I curled up into a ball and rolled toward my side, one hand on my head, the other around my middle.

"Lucy, hold on. Lucy." I recognized Bobby's voice, his voice was uneven, anxious.

"Sick." I said, my voice a gasp.

"Lucy, hold on." Bobby repeated. I heard sirens, the sound felt like it was splitting my brain cells.

"Loud." I gasped, referring to the sound.

"We need to get her to the ER. Her neurologist is on call at…" I could hear Bobby talking to someone, I was still curled tightly onto my side. I started trying to breathe, I needed to breathe, I needed to relax, I needed to untangle.

"Lucy." This time it was a woman's voice, familiar, but I couldn't place the voice. "Lucy, we need to get you in the car." I opened my eyes, and I could recognize the outline of Alex Eames. She was nodding at Bobby, and he lifted me up into his arms and into the SUV. He held me in the back seat.

"Keep the sirens off." Bobby's voice again, talking to Alex. I could feel the car moving, instinctively I curled up against the pain in my head. Then I let myself slide into black.

* * *

"Lucy." Bobby's voice again, this time I was laying on my back, I could feel the weight of blankets on me. My brain felt like it was wrapped in cotton, my hands, my legs felt fuzzy and heavy. I recognized the effects of some heavy pain narcotics, at least they pain in my head was somewhat dulled. 

"Bobby." I said, my mouth felt dry, my voice felt slow.

"I'm going to get Dr. Karp." Bobby said, referring to my neurologist. Then Alex Eames was standing with me.

"Alex." I said, remembering she had been at the scene.

"Bobby called me. If he had called 911 the ambulance would have taken you to a different hospital. He said your doctor was here." Alex offered as if she could read the confusion on my face.

"Is he OK?" I asked, and I could see her smile. I was starting to get my bearings, starting to relax into the pain medication. I could see her look down the hall, as if to see if he was close by.

"I think you scared him." Alex admitted honestly.

"I'm sorry. I didn't feel it coming, I would've taken something." I said, trying to lift my hand to brush the hair out of my face, but my hand was too heavy. I couldn't quite do it. I was surprised when Alex gently moved my hair out of my face, behind my ear. She really was quite observant.

"Thank you." I murmured, and I felt like she knew I was thanking her for more than moving my hair out of my face, I was thanking her for being there for Bobby.

"Anytime." She smiled, and her response reminded me of when she had come to my house that day to check on Bobby.

"They're paging Dr. Karp. He was just here, I don't know where the hell he could've gone." Bobby reappeared, his voice fast, a little loud. I winced a bit, from the sound.

"Slow down." Alex said to Bobby, looking pointedly at me. I could see Bobby try to take a deep breath, and then another.

"I called Bruce, no answer. So, I left a message." Bobby slowed down, softened his voice, sat down next to me. I tried to nod, my body motions still slow, still delayed.

"Lucy." Dr. Karp appeared. "How do you feel?" He asked, looking at my eyes.

"Slow." I said, "thirsty." I said.

"You could get her some ice." Dr. Karp said to Bobby, who looked at Dr. Karp like he was crazy if he thought Bobby was going to walk away.

"I'll get it." I heard Alex offer.

"I gave you something for the pain. We're going to need to do some scans." Dr. Karp offered, looking at my chart, my vitals on the monitors.

"I saw snow, snow in the lights." I offered, trying to recall what had happened. Dr. Karp was nodding, and I figured Bobby had said something.

"You're friend here caught you before you hit the ground, so you didn't hit your head. " Dr. Karp offered, looking at Bobby.

"Migraine." I said. I wanted Dr. Karp to confirm.

"Yes, migraine is indicated. But again, I want to do some tests." Dr. Karp was writing something on the chart. Alex was back with some ice, she ran an ice cube across my lips, helping me get it into my mouth. It felt like heaven, I closed my eyes and let the cold liquid melt against my tongue, and then I drifted off to sleep.

When I opened my eyes again, I was in a dark room, a hospital room. I could feel the IV in the back of my hand. I rolled over onto my side, I still felt slow, the pain medication still alive and well in my bloodstream. I could see Bobby sleeping in an extremely uncomfortable looking position in a chair nearby. My moving must have brought him awake, because almost as soon as I looked at him he jumped and leaned forward as if he was surprised he had dozed off.

"Hey, you." Bobby said, his voice a soft raspy whisper.

"Hey yourself." I replied, trying to smile a bit, "I'm sorry." I said, and watched him furrow his brow.

"Alex, she said I scared you." I said, thinking about the last thing I could remember.

"Yeah, you scared the hell out of me." Bobby said, not even attempting to deny it.

"Thanks for bringing me here. Thank Alex for bringing me here." I said. I watched him nod.

"Bruce and Laura, they're on their way. They were upstate, at Bruce's mom's." Bobby offered. I nodded. "They are on their way here."

"Thanks." I said. "Did the tests, did they show anything?" I asked, closing my eyes for a moment.

"Dr. Karp should be by in a few hours, around 7:00am." Bobby offered.

"You caught me, when I fell." I said, remembering what Dr. Karp had said. I watched Bobby nod.

"You don't really weigh that much." He smiled.

"You stayed all night." I looked at him, looking down at me, concern etched in his every feature.

"You know me, I don't really like my bed." He said, and I smiled, I would've laughed had I not been afraid it would hurt me.

"Funny." I said, closing my eyes, falling back to sleep again, thanking god that he had been there to catch me, thanking god that Alex Eames had been there to catch him.

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**Author's Note:** I think Alex has Bobby's back. I wanted to work that in somehow. Also, I like the idea of a circle of friends. That is, having Bobby realize that he has a circle of friends that he can count on. 


	30. Surprise

_**You were the one who made things **__**different,**__** you were the one who took me in. You were the one thing I could count **__**on,**__** above all, you were my friend.**_

_**

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**_"Surprise!" Everyone called out at once and I jumped back and crashed into Annie who was standing behind me. Annie had such a wide smile on her face, I knew this was her idea. I also knew that she recognized that I was completely, totally, utterly surprised. So surprised, in fact, you would've thought that I did not even know it was my birthday tomorrow. 

"I'm going to get you for this." I whispered to Annie, as she enthusiastically hugged and kissed me.

"You say that every time and you never do." Annie replied. Every couple of years she would organize a surprise party for me. It was never on a 5th-year kind of birthday, or even a 10th-year kind of birthday, it was always some random in-between year. Annie had organized the party at her gallery. I could see everyone in my life was there. Annie was thorough, and lavish. She had even arranged for a bartender and some wait staff to help with the food.

"Thank you. It's perfect." I told her, looking into her grass green eyes. I could see tears there, and I had tears in my own. We both knew that everyone was there, that is except my mom. That silent thing that passed between us was that this was the first surprise party Annie had arranged for me since my mother's passing a few years ago. "It's perfect." I said, and sniffed.

"Happy birthday honey." My sister Laura was hugging me, taking me from Annie's arms.

"Happy birthday." My brother-n-law Bruce wrapped his arms around us both.

"Happy birthday Aunt Lucy." Jake gave me a hug so hard he squashed me in his arms.

"Happy Birthday Dr. Jones." Jake's girlfriend Beth gave me a brief kiss on my cheek.

"Happy Birthday Lucy." Bobby hugged me briefly, briskly, lifting me slightly off my feet.

"Happy Birthday Luce." Mike Logan was there, and he kissed me on quickly on the lips.

"Happy Birthday." Alex Eames quietly wished me as Mike Logan set me down from his quick kiss. And several other of my friends were there as well.

I didn't realize I had tears on my face until Bobby reached over to wipe them away.

"You OK?" He softly asked. I nodded.

"My mom, you know. My dad." I felt more tears come. I treasured what I had, but I also missed what was gone. Bobby wrapped his arm tightly around me and placed a glass of champagne in my hand.

"To your mom and dad." He said, and I took a sip.

After the initial buzz settled into a nice rhythm, I found myself sitting near where the bar had been set-up looking at the room of people. I was struck by the nice mix of old friends and new. I was happy to see that Annie had cast the net over people like Mike Logan and Alex Eames, and she had even included Helen Dale, my assistant at my office, and her boyfriend Brian. My eyes moved to the door, and my breath caught as I watched Emil quietly walk in. Annie noticed him as well, and moved rather undetected to welcome him to the party. I could see him apologizing for being late, saying that his flight was delayed. And, then his eyes found mine. He mouthed the words "happy birthday" to me, and Annie placed a glass of champagne in his hand. She followed the direction of Emil's gaze, and met my eyes as well, and Annie winked at me.

I could hear Mike Logan telling some tall tale and laughing, it must have been funny because Bobby and Alex were both smiling. It occurred to me they were probably talking shop, but at least it was something that was making everyone smile. I was surprised to see my brother-n-law Bruce standing there as well. Bruce and Bobby were striking up quite friendship, trying out various and sundry jazz clubs across the city..

"Happy Birthday." Emil had made it across the room and was saying the words in person. He kissed me softly on my lips and I could feel butterflies in my heart.

"Thanks." I replied, looking at him, thinking that something looked a bit off. I watched him finish his glass of champagne and set the empty glass down.

"You look beautiful." He said, his blue eyes examining me. I could tell he was trying to decide how I felt. He had wanted to get on a plane when he heard I was hospitalized over night for a migraine. Though, I had kept him on the phone for a while, and he could hear I was doing better. I was able to convince him not to rush home to New York. We had decided we could plan a weekend where we could spend some time together instead of him rushing home on the redeye. I watched him take another glass of champagne. I realized he was nervous, I could see him looking at the people in the room, his eyes lingering on Bobby, taking notice of Mike Logan and Alex Eames.

"I'm glad you're here." I said, making an effort to actually say what I was thinking to him instead of assuming he could read my mind. He turned, looking at me, a bit of surprise on his face.

"I am glad I am here." He said, he touched my hand softly. "Your mom, she would love this." He said, recognizing that I probably missed her presence.

"Yeah, yeah she would." I said, nodding, still studying Emil, again thinking that something did not seem quite right. I watched him set his now empty champagne glass aside. Then it slowly occurred to me that he was drunk.

I smiled to myself, looking around the room, thinking the night felt a little upside down. I thought about all the things that were switched around – when I arrived, all eyes were on me, not on Annie. Annie's energy and grace usually brought everyone's eyes to her. This was great for me, since I did not particularly like being the center of attention. I looked at Bruce who was laughing and talking, and Laura was smiling on his arm. Usually, at parties, Laura was the one who was laughing and talking, with Bruce smiling quietly by her side. I looked over at Bobby, who was drinking what looked to be a glass of sparkling water. Bobby was strangely sober, and Emil was hammered. Though Emil was not one of those people who ever appeared drunk. In fact, I thought that I was probably the only one who realized that he wasn't sober.

"Hey, Lucy." Bobby caught me as I was headed across the gallery toward the restroom. He kind of leaned sideways moving his eyes into my field of vision to catch my attention. I smiled at this odd habit of his. I thought maybe he had fallen into it because he was so tall, but I knew that there was more to it than that, there was nothing simple about Bobby Goren. "You OK?" He asked me, holding my eyes with his.

"Yeah. I'm great, really great. It's nice, right?" I said, referring to the party, looking at him, still a little distracted that he was drinking what appeared t be water. "Is that water?" I asked, referring to his glass.

"Sparkling water." He smiled. "Well, it was anyway." I watched him set the empty glass aside. "I figured there is only so much room in your life for drunk guys." He looked across the room at Emil. I smiled realizing that nothing escaped Bobby's notice.

"Alex got a call from the Captain. He called us in." Bobby said, revealing why he had singled me out. He stood, silent for a moment, then he scooped me up in his arms and held me close. "Nice party, the nicest this year." Bobby said, kissing me on my temple, setting me back on my feet but still holding me in his arms.

"The year is new." I replied, thinking that there would be plenty of nice parties this year.

"Yeah, it is, the year is new." Bobby agreed. And it occurred to me that he didn't say those words from some dark empty place, he said those words like a man surrounded by friends, by family. He said the words like for tonight anyway he had let some stuff slide from the surface, slide from his heart. "Happy Birthday Lucy." Bobby kissed me again, one more time, smiling at me. "I should, uh, go." Bobby gestured.

"Thanks Bobby." I said softly, looking up at him. For a moment I thought he was going to say "for what", but he didn't.

"Well you opened the door, I just had to walk on in." He replied. I reached up and touched his chest very briefly with my hand. It meant a lot to me, what he had just said. "And, now I need to walk on out." He changed his tone from serious to joking.

"Right. Go fight crime." I teased, and I watched him go. Everyone happy, everyone here, it was a great birthday.

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**Author's Note:** Thanks for all of your reading and reviewing. And, thanks for all of your great adages. I still have a few in my pocket that I am sure my brain will keep toying with. At Chapter 30, I am calling this one "complete for now". Though, if the board is updating itself, you can see I started a new story "Four Funerals and a Wedding" - you can follow Bobby around for a while, and Lucy through Bobby's interactions with the world. Please follow me forward to that story :) 


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